Ask Me No Questions
by Nugar
Summary: From Believe it! to Believe me! Team Lie, the vicious, aggressive, loyal only to each other team of Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata from my other fic People Lie wind up in a world suspiciously like canon, which is far, far different from their own. AU/TT
1. Chapter 1

"I don't know, Naruto-kun," Morino Ibiki said doubtfully, pacing back and forth in the small, dingy room many meters below ground. "You say you want to cooperate with me, but you keep lying. I don't like it when you lie to me, it makes me think you don't really want to cooperate with me after all. Please tell me it was just a mistake and you do want to cooperate with me."

Naruto was already pale and haggard under the harsh, hot lights, itchy because of the cheap prison greys he was dressed in, and he squirmed involuntarily in the restraint chair as he fought the urge to puke. "Oh no no nonono! Shit, Ibiki-san!" he said, his voice high and shrill with terror. "As I told you, in my world, you practically raised me! I fucking know what you can do! I've seen it! You taught some of it to me firsthand! You frighten me in ways I can't even express, BELIEVE ME, I've been cooperating! PLEASE believe me!" If nothing else, the tears streaming from his eyes indicated that he was an excellent actor.

Ibiki said nothing, pacing back and forth slowly, his expression unreadable.

"For crying out loud, if I was some sort of super spy trying to sneak into Konoha and replace your Naruto, I think I'd have done my homework a little better and not been so blatantly out of place! At the very LEAST I would have gotten the teams right! Gods above, the only way I would have screwed that up would be if I was as dumb as everyone thinks I'm supposed to be, and then that would indicate that I'm really me, right?" Naruto argued desperately. "Shit, I don't even know who or where I am anymore. Fucking mind games! I HATE MINDGAMES!"

"By your own admission, you claim to love them," Ibiki noted with faint amusement.

Naruto looked taken aback. "Well, only when I'm the one pulling them! The receiving end sucks no end of cock!"

"You're certainly fouler mouthed than you should be," Ibiki commented after a moment.

"You took me to work almost daily!" Naruto shrilled, his balls attempting to climb into his throat for protection. "Nozomi and Tori and Hebi taught me how to curse! Anko gave me pointers!"

Ibiki shrugged. "I don't believe you. I guess we'll just have to try something else to make you more cooperative."

Naruto shrieked like a little girl and flinched so hard the chair creaked.

"IBIKI." The name wasn't so much shouted as said with such a commanding tone of voice that even the master torturer blanched and quickly retreated backwards and to the side, bowing low in apology as the Sandaime Hokage entered the room.

"Hokage-sama!" Naruto said, crying in relief. "Oh thank you thankyouthankyouthankyou."

Sarutobi gave Ibiki a stern glare, and the burly man bowed again in apology, submitting to his leader.

"You were to interrogate Naruto one on one because he claimed close association with you, not break him," Sarutobi said reproachfully.

"My apologies, Hokage-sama, I was simply testing his claims. His story has remained plausibly consistent throughout the retellings, and I only wished to check for appropriate responses for the things I could verify. I apologize again for getting carried away, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi raised one eyebrow in inquiry.

"Either the most magnificent acting I've ever seen, or the truth, Hokage-sama. His reactions to me are entirely consistent with the fear and psychological pain that I evoke among some of our long term guests whom I have developed a closer working relationship with. Such responses can't be entirely transferred to another interrogator, facial recognition and voice inflection are too important for subconscious reaction. It's possible he was prepared for the role by someone henged to look and sound like me, but the likelihood of an enemy getting such a complete psychological profile of me and yet making such blatant mistakes elsewhere do seem unlikely."

"So if our displaced guests stories are true, then at least in some world, I gave Naruto to you to raise." Sarutobi's voice was flat.

"It does appear that way, Hokage-sama," Ibiki noted with the closest thing to amusement he ever had.

The Hokage, unquestioned military leader of Konoha and all its inhabitants, facepalmed in disgust.

Naruto laughed, though it was kind of shrill and unhinged as it faded out. Even Ibiki smiled.

Sarutobi smacked Ibiki on the back of the head with the speed of a ninja god. "What are you smiling for?! Look what you've done to this child!"

Ibiki paused. Such a casual, insulting gesture should have been infuriating, but the third Hokage's compassion to children was well known, and it wasn't as though he could actually be mad at his leader. If the Hokage decided he needed a good smack, then he assuredly did and he should contemplate the error of his ways.

Of course…

"So, if I get the blame…" he said slowly, "do I also get the credit for his successes?"

Sarutobi frowned. Looked at him, looked at Naruto. Didn't answer.

Instead, he produced a kunai from somewhere in his robes and quickly released Naruto from the restraint chair.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama!" Naruto babbled enthusiastically. "I'll be properly grateful and regain my composure in a little bit. Until then, do you mind if I grovel at your feet until I forget how goddamn scary Ibiki-san is?" he asked politely as he fell to his knees and groveled.

"Of course, Naruto-kun, whatever you feel is best for helping you recover," Sarutobi said, unobtrusively helping the boy up and out of the room to rejoin the rest of the genin. "Don't worry, no one's going to hurt you. In fact, we're going to let you see your team again and have a break for a little while."

"Oh good," Naruto said brightly, still groveling just a little. "I'd been worried about them, you know. The only good thing about being with Ibiki-san was knowing that, you know, at least it was ME, you know? Every time we get tortured I always make sure I get to go first 'cause I have more experience with it…"

Ibiki stood quietly out of the way as the Hokage and Naruto rejoined the ANBU guard team and were escorted back out of T and I.

After a while, he smiled.

He thought the kid turned out great.

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It had begun as a day completely unlike any other day. All of them woke up feeling incredibly sick and tired, much like a hangover, though none of them knew what a hangover was. It wasn't even like the various times they'd overdone it on Kyubi chakra and nearly died. There was an incredibly strong sense of disorientation, and a mental fog that made it all but impossible to speak, much less notice that the things around them were subtly wrong.

Naruto woke up shivering and aching, couldn't find any of his weapons, his scrolls, or his favorite clothes, and his kitchen cabinets, not that he felt up to eating, were inexplicably stuffed with nothing but instant ramen. To the extent he thought about it at all, he thought Sasuke was messing with him again and had clumsily drugged him with something really freaking powerful.

Sasuke's apartment was much the same as always, though under any other circumstances his permanently activated sharingan would have noticed things being in the wrong place and little details like the place where Naruto had torn the wallpaper being missing. Since he couldn't see for puking for almost fifteen minutes, his sharingan wasn't doing much good. He assumed he was either sick or poisoned, and either way, had to see Naruto and get some of that amazing healing Kyubi chakra and get it fixed. The hospital never even crossed his mind.

Hinata's room was completely identical on the surface, though someone had bizarrely replaced all of her clothes with old things she'd thrown out and new things she'd never have bought because they were plain and nearly identical to her old stuff. She felt incredibly sick as well, but the juken could heal as well as harm, and she quickly managed to get herself at least functional by adjusting blood and chakra flows to her head. Assuming that her father had directed the servants to replace her clothing with less sexy, more drab, if comfortable, items as some indication that he did not approve of a sexual relationship and was in no hurry for her to produce a new heir, she shrugged and went about her morning business as she made a note to bring it up with Naruto later.

Breakfast with her sister and Neji was again as normal. Hanabi barely answered when she spoke to her, which was not something Hinata worried about. Neji was under the weather as well, which caused them both to assume they had caught some illness. They were both polite and formal, as usual, though Neji invited her to cough on Sasuke a few times before she got over it.

Ironically, the person whose home life had changed the least was the very person who first discovered that all was not as it used to be in Konoha.

"What do you mean, I'm on a team with Naruto and Sasuke?!" Sakura exclaimed in complete confusion. First she woke up sick, and now her team was messing with her head. What a terrible way to start the day.

Shino and Kiba exchanged glances and slid unobtrusively away from the clearly insane girl.

"Sakura-chan… I think we need to get you to the doctor," Kurenai said gently. She frowned. "And possibly your sensei."

"But you're my sensei!" Sakura wailed. "Hinata was the one who got put on Team Lie! Just ask them!"

"We will, I promise," Kurenai prepared to jump on and subdue the increasingly distraught kunoichi. "But why do you call them Team Lie?"

"We started calling them that when we found out Naruto was just pretending to be an idiot and was actually really smart and talented. He pretended to be an idiot so well it fooled everyone," Sakura explained.

"He does play the fool well," Shino noted.

"If he's that good at lying, I bet he's lying about being smart, not being an idiot. Naruto is dumb as a sack of rusty kunai," Kiba countered.

"Arf!" Akamaru agreed.

"And then Hinata pretended to be shy and meek and was really… uh… kinda scary, really," Sakura admitted with an embarrassed cough. "Sasuke is still cool, though," she hastened to add.

"Scary Hinata? This I gotta see!" Kiba announced.

They finally found the aforementioned 'Team Lie' with, of all things, Asuma and his Team Ten.

"We thought Kakashi was still gone, and we couldn't remember what we were supposed to do today, so we went to ask Asuma-sensei," Naruto explained. "So you're here, too, Sakura? Well, I'm getting the theme now." Naruto quirked his lips ironically.

"Neji did tell me to cough on Sasuke this morning when he thought I was sick," Hinata said quietly. "So I believe it's safe to assume he is a part of this as well." She paused. "Stop sniffing me, Inuzuka."

Kiba paused in his circling and sniffing of what should have been his teammate. "Well, she looks like Hinata, and she smells like her too, but there's a lot of Naruto all over her." He leaned in and sniffed some more.

"We're together," Naruto explained.

"Genjutsu wish fulfillment?" Asuma asked Kurenai quietly. She only shrugged.

"And you really should stop getting in her personal space, Kiba," Naruto continued.

Kiba looked up at him challengingly. "What, you gonna defend your _girlfriend_?"

Even Kurenai and Asuma were too slow, and only partially because of the shock, to stop Hinata.

Kiba was rather surprised to find himself on his knees in front of Hinata, the front of his jacket balled in her fist and her palm millimeters away from his forehead.

"I haven't hurt him," Hinata announced quickly, releasing Kiba as the jounin clearly wavered on whether to treat it as an attack or not.

Kiba debated on mentioning the twinges of pain in his joints from the forced movement, but decided that it might be time to shut up after all.

"It's always hilarious how they underestimate Hinata first," Sasuke noted happily. "You see, you have it all wrong. Hinata protects Naruto." He chuckled. "Certainly the idiot can't manage to do it himself."

"Oh, shut up, Sasuke," Naruto grumbled. "This is not the time. We've clearly got some sort of weird issue that I'm still betting is some sort of freakish genjutsu. I can't even remember what happened yesterday, much less make any kind of guess why everyone but those of us with a contract seems to be from a similar but different world." He paused and tapped his chin in thought.

"I'd love to say that there's something affecting everyone who doesn't have a contract, and we're the only ones who remain unaffected because of the nature of our chakra. Ideally, I'd have liked to keep all this quiet until we can figure out what's going on, but the nature of the discovery seems to have created a situation where not just our respective teams, but Asuma-sensei and Team 10, and almost certainly Gai-sensei and his team as well all know about the unusual circumstances surrounding us. Since it really does seem to be everyone but us, and they think we're acting strangely and not the other way around, sadly I foresee a visit with the hokage and many hours in interrogation."

"You're right about that," Kakashi announced, appearing out of nowhere. "I intend to find out what is going on here as soon as possible."

Naruto nodded. "Yes, Kakashi-sensei. Um, can I pee first?"

"No."

Naruto sighed.

"Well, I encourage all of you, and that goes for you, too, Sakura, to cooperate fully and answer all questions to the best of your ability. The last thing we want is to be declared spies or imposters when all we are is a group of poor, innocent, extremely confused and increasingly frightened young genin," Naruto advised. "Please, be considerate of our situation," he continued, turning to the adults. "I mean, Sasuke has a fragile psyche, and Sakura is just a gentle kunoichi. Hinata is really sweet, and I'm just a poor abused orphan." He paused. "Feel free to scare the shit out of Neji when you go get him, though. He's kind of a dick."

"Heh," Hinata snickered once.

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"…and so that was the second time I got crabs," Naruto finished explaining.

"Well that's quite a story, Naruto-kun," Sarutobi said calmly while he packed his pipe full of tobacco again.

AN: What story did Naruto tell the Hokage? Why, only People Lie, gentle readers!

"I suppose your teammates will tell the same story?" the Hokage asked as he puffed his pipe back to life.

Naruto hesitated. "Well, Hinata would. Sakura and Neji weren't there for most of what I told you. Don't listen to Sasuke, though. He's gonna make himself out to be the hero or something and emphasize all the parts where I kind of look like an idiot."

"Indeed. Then, while I hear their versions of events, would you care to tell your story again? I believe you said you were close with Morino Ibiki in your childhood? I'm sure he'd love to hear that. I'm afraid that, as I've known events, the man has never made a real connection outside of work."

"…_shit_."

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"Here you go, Naruto-kun. Your friends, safe and sound. You've got three hours with them, and then you'll be escorted to different rooms for the night. We'll resume our conversations tomorrow," Sarutobi said, not unkindly.

"Are you okay, Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked, concerned as she immediately went to his side and relieved him from the Hokage's company.

"Yeah, how was it?" Even Sasuke had been worried when he found out Naruto was with Ibiki. Naruto's stories of growing up with the man were hardly frightening compared to many of the things they'd done, but Naruto's fear of the man was clearly real.

"Could have been worse," Naruto evaded. "What about you? Everyone okay?" He looked around the room to check on Sakura, who sat nervously apart from the others, but seemed unharmed and untraumatized, and Neji, who sat even farther away against one wall, just as calm and composed as ever. All of them, Naruto included, were dressed in drab prison greys, having been quite thoroughly searched and inspected when they were first brought in.

They'd been interrogated separately over the course of about three days, and although they all needed a good bath and their own clothes back, they had at least been fed and allowed showers and sleep time. This was the first time they'd been brought back together.

Sasuke shrugged. "Meh."

"They didn't hurt me or anything," Sakura replied. "But… they haven't fixed anything either! This… this isn't right!"

"This probably would have been quite a shock if I hadn't already realized fate isn't real," Neji noted calmly.

"The worst part was attempting to explain it to Father," Hinata admitted. "They have not yet asked us to attempt a summoning as further proof."

"Yeah, I'm kinda curious if it's gonna work," Naruto admitted. "A little scared to try it, admittedly. "If it doesn't work, that means everyone else is right and there's something wrong with us. I don't want there to be something wrong with us. I like us."

"Me, too," Hinata said softly.

Sasuke grunted in agreement.

"I don't," Neji added unbidden.

"Yeah, I didn't get the luxury of having my team come along on this bizarre mind trip, either," Sakura whined.

"I'm not talking about being in a world where my teammates aren't the ones I remember, though truthfully I couldn't tell a difference, I just don't like them," Neji elaborated with a gesture at Team Lie.

"Yeah, well, you're just a bucket of sunshine yourself," Naruto grumbled.

"But what about me? I don't have my team!" Sakura whined. "Whichever one I'm supposed to have!" She jabbed her finger at Neji. "You at least have the same people, right? I'm with people who don't know me at all! They're more concerned about Hinata than they are me! I'm all alone!"

"We're all alone in this cold, uncaring world," Neji agreed. "Nothing has meaning, nothing has purpose."

"Whaaa!" Sakura started crying.

"Oh, don't worry, Sakura, we're here with you," Naruto said, going over to put an arm around her. "We remember the real you, we won't forget you! Just remember all the good times we had together!"

"Why, it seems like just a couple weeks ago when I threatened to kill you," Hinata noted. "Good times."

"WHAAAAAAA!" Sakura cried.

"Sasuke is here at least, right?" Naruto said in a vain attempt to get her to stop crying as he awkwardly petted her tangled hair. "Remember? You were dating the love of your life? That's good, right? It's like a romantic getaway! To another world! How many couples get to do that?"

"It was only one date," Sasuke noted. "It's not like I like her."

Naruto implored him with his eyes to come over, shut up, and comfort the crying girl.

"Why are you looking at me like that, Naruto? Stop it, it's creepy," Sasuke complained.

"WHAAAAAAA!"

"Oh, stop crying before I give you something to cry about," Hinata snapped peevishly.

"There's nothing worth crying about," Neji noted. "Nothing is worth anything at all."

Naruto looked up at the ceiling, where doubtlessly there would be hidden listening devices, or seals, or something, and sighed.

"This was all part of some master plan of forcing me to be with my teammates so that it would make me crack, wasn't it?" Naruto asked the presumed unseen observer. "If so, well played, Sir, well played."

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The next day, the Hokage asked them to tell their story one more time, but this time an abridged version replacing the kyubi with a fictional bloodlimit Naruto had activated, to the assembled groups of Team Eight, Ten, and Gai's team, as well as their respective teachers and Hinata's father. Sakura's parents did not have nearly enough political power or security clearance to be brought in on the secret, though the Hokage promised her they would deal with that issue privately as needed.

"Although I agree with Naruto that, under ideal circumstances, we would have kept this as quiet as possible, until we discover a cure, a counter, or some other way to set things right, far too many people know that these five genin are not as they should be. We will allow you to return to duty on an extremely limited trial basis, to be evaluated as time goes on. But since you will be working with people you once knew as friends on both sides but no longer trust because of these events, I think it'd be a good idea if you tell them your stories together, here in a secure room."

"Oh, man, you mean you want us to tell the truth to these people in hopes we'll learn to be friends again?" Naruto complained. "What kind of freakish friendship is based on trust and honesty, anyway?"

"Normal ones?" Ino asked hesitantly.

Even Neji joined in the laugher for that one.

They told their stories. Team Lie's was by far the most intricate, though Sakura took pains to tell some of the funny events that had happened with her Team Eight, which had Kiba and Kurenai laughing now and then, and even Shino might have smiled.

The real difference came with the story of their first C rank mission, which turned into an S rank horror show that still showed itself in the three scars across Naruto's stomach and the intricate tracery of scars that covered Hinata's body.

Those scars, disfiguring though they might be, were actually a tremendous relief to the displaced genin, since they were proof that their memories were correct. One little difference nagged Naruto and Sasuke, though. There were fresher, pinker patches of skin on Hinata's stomach and back, where it seemed like the scars had been distorted and twisted. Instead of the original twisty runes devoted to the seven tailed beast, there was an almost comical depiction of a star shaped fishcake with a spiral on it.

Hinata had, at some point in their missing memory gap, had her scars changed so that they were devoted to Naruto. Admittedly, the naruto symbol had been carved into her flesh, perhaps by her own hand, but neither Sasuke nor Naruto found that in the least creepy.

The description of the shoggoth was particularly vivid, as well as their various experiences inside the beast. Sasuke used a minor genjutsu, with permission from the adults who knew it was harmless, to give a brief recap of it chasing them out of the swamp, which he still remembered in vivid clarity.

"Oh, my. I'm certainly glad we don't have those in our world," Sarutobi said grimly.

"Really?!" Naruto asked.

"No. I've fought some amazing things, including the Kyubi, but I've never seen or heard of anything like that," Kakashi confirmed, feeling a little proud of 'his' students.

They paused to consider that amazing revelation that even some of the fundamental stuff of their world was not the same in the new one.

Then, very seriously, Sasuke walked over and gave Kakashi a hug.

Kakashi was, needless to say, somewhat freaked out by this.

"Best. Alternate." Hinata began.

"World. EVER!" Naruto cheered. "Woohoo! No shoggoths! Goodbye nightmares, hello sweet dreams! Forget trying to fix things," he said, turning to the Hokage. "Can we stay? Please?"

They downplayed their role in antagonizing Gai's team, though they did admit that they were, 'kind of jerks' as they poked at their weaknesses. Neji's ironic laugh told his team all the needed to know about exactly how bad Team Lie had been. But it hadn't happened to them directly, and as students of Gai, they winced appropriately at the story of how they'd been told to 'Run. That's all he said. Run.'

Then they explained how they'd been sent to train with Team Ten, and how they'd come to honestly like Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji, and tried to make friends with Team Gai again, though Lee was still kinda mad and Neji was…

"What? What are you implying?" he asked, affronted.

And the last thing they could really remember they were with Jiraiya the Sannin and on their way to summon Orochimaru from an alternate plane to answer some questions about the nature of Naruto's power and were really hoping Orochimaru didn't…

…seriously…

…mess with them…

Naruto stumbled to a halt in his story and facepalmed.

"Oh, shit. We summoned Orochimaru the freaking GOD. OF COURSE IT WENT BAD." He stumbled back and forth for a few minutes, slapping himself in the head. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. DAMN IT JIRAIYA! THAT WAS YOUR IDEA!"

"You know, under the circumstances, this is probably nothing at all as bad as it could have been," Sasuke noted grimly.

"Point," Hinata allowed.

"This can only end in tears," Shino noted.

"Or hilarity," Tenten countered. She found their circumstances tremendously amusing, and the new nihilistic Neji, while certain to get annoying fast, was at least a change of pace from 'oh noes fate' Neji.

"Either way, it'll be troublesome," Shikamaru said with a sigh.

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AN: Sorry about the lack of People Lie updates. I've been largely focused on my original novel project, which still needs a title. Needs beta readers and feedback, too. Since I'm the kind of guy who likes to work with what I'm good at, you'll be pleased to hear that I'm totally stealing some of the more popular stuff from People Lie for my novel. Not ninjas, or anything like that, I mean themes and styles. Friends who are mean to each other in funny ways, friends who are mean to other people in funny ways, and the juxtaposition of comedy and horror that, really, is so important to the way People Lie went down. The novel itself is kind of a dark urban fantasy type world… except with a more military slant and mostly non powered characters. Lots of moral grey area stuff, sometimes edging into black, much like the missions of People Lie. (I stress again, the novel has nothing at all to do with ninjas, Naruto, or People Lie, but the writing style will be quite familiar.) For more information and addition to the as yet small mailing list, PM IM or email me. People Lie was always a test bed for ideas I wasn't sure about. Some of them didn't work, but enough did that it astonishingly enough got popular in its own right.

Well, I'm sad to say that People Lie has kind of meandered its course. I always had plot elements in mind, and I always planned to, you know, get on with the plot at some point, but I kept totally being distracted by further elements of the characters I wanted to explore. And, to be honest, People Lie has pretty much run out of steam. Most of the negative comments I'm seeing now aren't from people who never liked it to begin with, they're from people who quite enjoyed it at first but gave up when it just started being character interaction without purpose. That's a very valid complaint, and one I agree with. To actually fix the issue would require a complete rewrite of People Lie.

But wait! That's… boring, right? It might make it more accessable to the new reader, but to those of you who have been following for years now, that's not very exciting, especially at first. And quite a few of you have expressed interest in Team Lie taking on canon events over the years, which I mostly strayed from, because I had other ideas. Well, combine that with time travel and alternate world business and you've got the inspiration for this.

It certainly won't follow pure canon, and the world their in is still the darker, grittier version I like, but there's no lovecraftian stuff except what they brought with them. The interesting thing is, at least to me, is that Team Lie is so unsuited to even near canon. They need a hero, which they had in canon Naruto.

PL Naruto is not a hero. Maybe he's not an actual villian… but he's not a hero. Still, it's up to you whether you believe Shino or Tenten. Me… I'm just writing this because the novel project is moving slower than my urge to write due to the difficulties inherent in building original material. I'm gonna go with Shikamaru on this one. This is very troublesome.

Also, I have not committed to anything other that for sure working on my novel. I may go back to regular People Lie and try to fix it, I may keep working on this, I may do something else. I dunno.

Reviews welcome!


	2. Chapter 2

"So I suppose the big question now is do we get to keep our teams, or do we try to conform to how things are here?" Naruto said with a wince. He hated to bring it up, really, but it had sort of been weighing on his mind. He knew plenty about Sakura but he'd never really worked with her, and he really did want to keep Hinata around.

"Although I appreciate that you took care of the me that is native to this world, I'm afraid that your previous perceptions of me as shy, weak, or… unaggressive… might bias a future teacher/student relationship," Hinata explained quietly to Kurenai.

"Now, now, Hinata, if you're going to threaten to murder a sensei every time you don't get your way, I don't know that I want to take you on as a student," Kakashi said jovially. "Besides, it's not just you to consider, there's also Sakura's opinion as well."

Hinata looked at Sakura. "Does she matter?"

"I'd never have guessed," Sasuke offered.

Naruto laughed.

Even Sakura found herself sadly nodding. Her fate would be decided by those more powerful than her. Though she'd pretty much assumed it would be the teachers discussing it, Team Lie's contributions were not exactly unexpected.

Kurenai frowned at the pale eyed girl she realized she really didn't know anymore, though she found she had a good idea of what to expect. She'd always known Hinata was not entirely happy with herself. From her shyness to her lack of confidence, both on and off duty. She'd been trying to teach the girl how to be what she wanted without losing the essential goodness that was a big part of her personality.

But this alternate Hinata hadn't gone such a gentle route, and had thrown away literally everything in some monomaniacal urge to cleanse herself of the weakness she'd despised in herself. That was sad, tragic even, but Kurenai had to admit, this alternate Hinata, from her conversations with the girl, did seem happier.

Too bad she was such a little bitch.

On the other hand, this Sakura girl, she reminded herself almost painfully of her Hinata, and she could easily see how in another world she'd taken the girl under her wing. Perhaps it would be appropriate. Kurenai had built her genin team as the ultimate trackers, which might have been seen as odd by the other jounin since she personally had no more than average tracking skills, and was instead a master of genjutsu. It made sense to her, though, since she abhorred the idea of turning her students into perfect little copies of herself, and had not intended to focus on teaching genjutsu.

Sakura did seem imminently suited for the training, though. Genjutsu took exceptional chakra control, and Sakura was exceptional amongst even other prodigies. Even Hinata, with the advantages her bloodline gave her, had never had such precise, efficient control. And Sakura already knew quite a bit about genjutsu that 'she' had already taught her…

The crux of the matter with Sakura would be, again, teaching the girl to stand up for herself.

"Of course your opinion matters," she told the pink haired girl, glaring at the others. "As does mine, Kakashi's, the Hokage, Hinata's father, Kiba, Shino, and everyone else involved."

Kakashi smiled infuriatingly at her under that damned mask of his. By encouraging Sakura to stick up for herself, she indicated a willingness to take the girl, whether she actually wanted her or not. The insufferable bastard now had the upper hand and could make the situation go whichever direction HE wanted.

Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke all smirked at her, like they'd known she wouldn't let them bully the girl.

Oh those arrogant little shits. Her eyes narrowed. More than anything else, she believed that they'd been taught by Kakashi. They had his mark all over them.

Worst of all, the Hokage was there, watching the interactions, silently judging. Of course, he would never fall for such a simple manipulative trick like assuming that just because she did speak up for Sakura, she wanted her, but he was also certainly perceptive enough to see that she wouldn't exactly MIND taking her and was wavering on the desire. He would also note their little Kakashi-like manipulations.

"Well, I don't know. Sure, you claim I taught you, but what if I have different standards than my counterpart? I look for very specific things in students, and you might not be up to par. I've failed every other team that was offered to me for training, except the Team Seven of our world, and Sakura was a big part of making that team work," Kakashi said conversationally. "I'm not going to take you if you don't fit the right mold."

"We took the bell test," Naruto offered.

"And how did that go?" Kakashi asked, though truthfully he'd already heard it several times.

Naruto knew that, of course, but he couldn't very well not answer the man he wanted something from even though the question was redundant. Clearly, Kakashi wanted to hear something, something specific.

Damned if Naruto knew what it was, though.

Naruto began his explanation. "You told us to meet you in at the training ground the next day, and to skip breakfast because the training would make us puke. We all got a good laugh out of it too, because, I mean, really. None of us were children. And it's also not like puking up a good breakfast is something to avoid. Now dry heaves, those suck."

"Amen to that," Sasuke muttered.

"Now, we already knew about the 'secret'," Naruto made quotes with his fingers, "test jounins give to see if they want the team or not, but since we'd only just found out that you were our teacher, we didn't have long to find out anything about you. So after you left I grabbed Hinata and Sasuke-"

"That was when I first found out he wasn't an irredeemable moron, just occasionally an idiot," Sasuke supplied helpfully.

"-and started checking you out. Since they've been offering you genin teams for years and you've failed every one, we tracked down enough of them to find out that you always give the bell test, and what you expected us to do. After that it was pretty easy to agree to work together to pass."

"Didn't quite work out that way," Hinata said quietly.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed. "Uh, we were waiting for you to show up, and all of a sudden Sasuke went nuts inside some private hell, and Hinata started trying to kill me."

"Naruto suddenly started screaming at me about 'betrayal' and 'lies' and attacked me," Hinata added quietly. "It was the only part of what we experienced that was actually real. That was how I learned that genjutsu can still be used against someone it can't affect directly."

"Yeah, uh," Naruto said with a cough, "I hate to admit it, but you had us. You had our ass."

"I was helpless to save myself," Sasuke admitted.

"But Hinata, Hinata was the one that finally figured it out and started breaking the genjutsu on us, so yeah, I'd say she's pretty damned integral to the team," Naruto emphasized. "And you explained that having the foresight to find out about the bell test was only half the test, and that we had to overcome our personal fears as a team to finish the rest of it."

"Hmm," Kakashi said noncommittally.

"Naruto refused to kill me even when he thought I'd betrayed him and was honestly trying to kill him in return," Hinata elaborated, knowing Naruto had deliberately glossed over that part of the story to make her look better, but also easily seeing that Kakashi was unimpressed by his attempt. "That gave me the encouragement I needed to look in him, see the genjutsu, and break him out. Then we saved Sasuke."

True, in more ways than one, she thought.

"Hmm. Well, I'm not the sensei you knew, so that's just not good enough for me. It doesn't seem like I'll take you," Kakashi said, cheerfully crushing their hopes.

"Things are not always as they seem," Naruto countered back immediately, his hopes not crushed at all. "Plenty have said it, you made us understand it."

"That does sound like something I would tell you…" Kakashi mused to himself.

"Tell? You never told us anything," Hinata demurred.

"Never taught us a single technique. Never sparred with us, never corrected our forms," Sasuke added.

"Because that's not how you teach," Naruto finished, giving him a challenging stare.

"Oh for crying out loud, just give them a test or something," Kurenai snapped irritably. "I know you, and you'll keep going at these word games all day. Meanwhile, I'm going to take my team and go elsewhere. Come along, Sakura."

"Yes, Sensei!" Sakura chirped, brightening immediately.

"Now hold on there, Kurenai," Kakashi drawled. "Sakura is still my student. At least on the official record. So I must protest you running off with her without my permission. I suppose there's nothing stopping you from taking Hinata. That would neatly solve our little question of how the teams will be ordered…"

Kurenai huffed. "Oh, fine, but get on with it. I may have all day, but rest assured I don't intend to spend it with you."

Sarutobi looked tremendously amused. "Yes, Kurenai-san has a point, Kakashi. Perhaps you should just administer some form of test to see if they're suitable to continue learning under a legendary Copy Nin?" He coughed. "And I should send someone for Hyuga-san. I bet he would like to see the result of this version of his daughter's training under you."

"A test? Excellent idea, Hokage-sama. I can't believe I didn't think of that," he agreed with a smile. "I know just the thing! Everyone meet me at training ground sixteen in fifteen minutes, I've got to pick up some bells first." Kakashi grinned at them all, then disappeared with a poof of chakra smoke.

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They were given their clothes and equipment back, Kurenai collected her other two students, and while a runner was sent to invite Hiashi, they all obediently followed the Hokage across Konoha, an amiable stroll through the city with Sarutobi not only making a point of talking to each of them, but also exchanging brief greetings with some of the people they passed.

He lead them right into a nice restaurant the Hokage liked.

No one said a word.

It was getting close to noon anyway, and they were all hungry to varying degrees.

Naruto's mind practically exploded under the implications of the Hokage buying them lunch before a reenactment of the bell test. Was it a small gesture to help them pass? Something worked out with Kakashi in secret? Perhaps, for reasons of his own, he was messing with Kakashi? He was, after all, one of very very few ninja who could conceivably do so without repercussion. Or maybe it was just some sort of nice little gesture seasoned with an ironic reference?

Naruto had no idea. So he ordered fish and pickled vegetables and plenty of rice to go along with it as a high energy meal to see him through the upcoming trial. Both Hinata and Sasuke ordered pretty much the same, though Sasuke always preferred fresh vegetables.

Why the hell was the Hokage staring at him like that? Just enough to make it obvious. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Creepy. And unnerving. It wasn't like he ordered something super expensive just because it was on the Hokage's tab, rice was cheap!

That reminded him, he was gonna have to do some serious shopping after things got back to normal. He had nothing but ramen at his apartment.

Not that he was gonna throw out all those cup noodles. Be a shame to waste perfectly good ramen, even if it was instant.

So after a good lunch, they continued on to the training ground, meeting up with Hiashi along the way. Sarutobi had earlier confided to the genin that he hadn't invited the Hyuga leader to eat with them because then it would have turned into this big old awkward formal thing, and he didn't want to inflict that on them.

Hinata had countered that her father hated eating in public with other people so he made every event as awkward as possible for everyone concerned so he wouldn't get many invitations.

Naruto and Sasuke thought it was funny, but Hinata's deadpan delivery left the rest of them wondering if she was serious or not.

Awkward silences all around.

Kakashi was waiting with, presumably, a pout by the time they got there.

"Forty five minutes late? Really?" he complained.

"I don't put up with the paperwork and the headaches to wait on _other_ people," Sarutobi said with a smile. "And I couldn't let these young people fight on an empty stomach."

They shared a laugh.

Kakashi turned to the maybe-maybe not Team Lie. "So, how about it kids? Feeling good, feeling ready?"

"I sure am glad you're all chummy with us," Naruto answered brightly. "It really reassures us to see that you're the same here as the teacher we knew."

Kakashi raised one eyebrow.

Sasuke laughed. "Sorry, Naruto," he apologized. "I just couldn't keep a straight face."

"It's okay, I was about to lose it too," Naruto confessed. "Not everyone can do the poker face like a Hyuga."

Hinata didn't so much as twitch.

Kakashi hummed softly to himself. "Well then. Since you're ready, shall we begin?"

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei!" they chorused, stepping into the clearing with him.

He held up three bells in his hand. "Since you've already shown that you understand the value of teamwork, let's see the quality of your teamwork, shall we? No tricks, no hidden messages. In order to pass, you'll have to work together and fight me." He hung one bell on the front of his vest, right over his heart, on a short string. "Hmm, let's see, and another here…" he mused, hanging another on the bottom left side of his vest, near his waist, "and the last…" He put the last one dangling from his belt in back. "Three bells, three genin. Each of you needs one to pass." He grinned at them. "And if you think I'm going to go easy on you, you're clearly not fit to be my students. If you want a bell, you'd better come at me as if you mean to kill me."

"Any restrictions?" Naruto asked.

"Oh, none at all," Kakashi replied archly, grinning. "By all means, use your summoning contract. We're all quite curious about what it involves. Pay no mind to the ANBU in the trees, they're just here for the show. They won't interfere."

'Unless, of course, things got really out of hand,' went unsaid.

"Well, we usually only pull it out if we really need it, and certainly not out in the open where just everyone can see, but in deference to our interested audience," Naruto announced, giving Sarutobi a bow, and another to Hiashi, just in case. The Hyuga leader inclined his head infinitesimally, acknowledging the gesture. The choushijiro veins around his eyes bulged as he activated his byakugan to watch the proceedings more closely.

Hinata went first. Unlike the standard summoning gesture of biting a finger to use the blood, Hinata extended a tiny lance of chakra from her fingertip, certain her father would see it, and made a tiny incision in the thinner skin on the back of her forearm. Smearing the tiny bit of blood around, her hands flashed through seals, the same seals they'd copied from Kakashi when he summoned his nin dogs.

They'd discovered that the seals didn't matter one whit. They weren't channeling chakra, they were receiving it, and intent and acceptance was all that mattered.

Naruto grinned as he felt/smelled/tasted/touched/KNEW the blood Hinata offered, a link between them opened, and a tiny fraction of his chakra flooded her body.

The incision disappeared in an instant and Hinata stood just a little bit straighter, feeling stronger, faster, more limber, and overall better as the red demonic chakra rushed through her coils. Her vision expanded and everything brightened, even as her pale eyes turned featureless black. She turned to look at the audience, and all of the genin stepped back.

Even Kurenai flinched, and the Hokage stroked his beard thoughtfully.

Hinata produced a kunai and held it up in demonstration. "The chakra I get from Naruto expands the ability of my eyes. I have no blind spots, a greatly increased visual range, unlimited focus, and I can see the angles where our reality ends and other planes begin. It also allows me to quickly find the entropy point of objects. This kunai was well made, but even the finest steel has tiny flaws in the crystalline structure of the metal. If I pick the most likely one and use my chakra as if I was attacking a tenketsu," she tapped the kunai with one finger, and it crumbled to a dozen shards in her grip, "it breaks like glass. This applies to all rigid materials."

Sasuke was next, and he simply bit his thumb. The black tomoe of his mature sharingan turned white and began spinning, and immediately his eyes welled with tiny drops of blood from unseen burst capillaries in the sclera of his eyes. "I don't have family here I have to impress, so I'm not gonna show off," he said dismissively.

Naruto absorbed the rush of pure living energy his teammates had given him in return for chakra and felt himself start to change. His whiskers deepened, his teeth sharpened, and his eyes flickered red. With an effort of will and a sealless henge, he stopped the visual cues before they got obvious and gave everyone a wave. "I just get amazing healing," he explained. "I actually lose the chakra I gave to them, but since I've got so much, it's not really an issue. I've always wondered why jounin can't share their chakra with their squad, but I guess the ability to share is the only really special thing about what I have."

Kakashi just stood there, waiting.

"Alright team, you know the deal. Like we're gonna kill him, no holds barred," Naruto said with a grin.

A grin that the adults present noted was more feral than a child should be able to produce. The henge couldn't hide everything.

Kakashi was assaulted with a strange white tomoe sharingan, empty voids, and piercing blue eyes that hid the roaring red inferno of one world's most powerful demon god.

He appeared completely unimpressed.

"I've donkey punched prostitutes who put out more killing intent than you three," Kakashi said dismissively.

"Ah, but we can also-" Naruto countered, and suddenly the killing intent disappeared.

A moment later, so did the trio.

Kakashi yawned. "I hope they do something soon, or I'm going to fail them for being boring."

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They started by making clones. A lot of clones.

Actually, a clone army of mixed faceless ninja and samurai archers.

And they did it far enough away that Kakashi was unable to see it.

It didn't mean he wasn't aware, of course, but he couldn't see it. He could see when the sky started to darken and literally ten thousand arrows, shuriken, senbon, and kunai filled the sky, all targeted on the clearing Kakashi stood in the middle of.

Kakashi looked up at the descending arrows, which moved deceptively slowly, and widened his one visible eye.

"Huh," he commented, and sank into the ground right before the massed projectiles landed. Everything disappeared several seconds after it hit, the impact being too much for the chakra and shadow constructions.

A squad of samurai marched smartly onto the field, precise as the daimyo's guard, and came to a stop. The leader, dressed in the white lacquered armor of a Lightning country general, saluted the audience.

"We knew it would be ineffective, but hearing us talk about some of our earlier training isn't nearly the same as seeing the-awp!" the henged Naruto explained, only to be cut off with a startled squawk as he was dragged below the ground with only his head showing.

"Yes, we know we are here to impress Kakashi-sensei, not our audience," a rank and file soldier admitted in a suspiciously feminine voice. "We kinda counted on that."

The explosion where the clone had been buried threw dirt and rocks thirty feet in the air, but the grit was blown away by an enormous hurricane wind that sprung up over their heads. A few of them turned to see a clone wave at them, then disappear in a poof, exhausted by the wind jutsu.

Kakashi casually walked back into the clearing, dusting himself off.

"I'm waiting," he announced.

The trio started attacking in earnest, using many of the tricks they'd developed for fighting single opponents who were indisputably better than them in every area of combat.

Most of the techniques were theoretical, with only some of them having been used in the occasional spar with Asuma. Others came from their fight with Lee, and some they used against specialty fighters like the individual members of Team 10. They tried everything and made up a few more on the spot.

Clone kawarimi, where they would charge in with their real bodies and absorb a few casual smacks by Kakashi in return for a chance to score a hit or snatch at a bell, then be replaced by a clone which had already timed a kawarimi it performed itself.

Team launching, where two of them would use combined muscle strength to throw the other at Kakashi at speeds none of them could reach on their own.

Swapping fighting styles, where Sasuke would pretend to be Hinata, Hinata would pretend to be Naruto, and Naruto would use a jutsu that Sasuke had used previously. Naruto was the least dangerous of them in extremely close ranges, and Hinata was the most dangerous, so they tried to trick Kakashi into letting 'Naruto' in close.

Hinata performed the Kaiten. Sasuke used his Phoenix fireball technique. Naruto covertly seeded the field with copies of himself henged into rocks, kunai, and shuriken, then had them all pop back at once to catch Kakashi in the middle.

They tried independent plans. Each of them made clones and took command of a copy team, developing unique plans with their own personality slant. Naruto also had other teams devoted to coming up with different ideas as well. They all exploited the true strength of the kage bunshin, that of its ability to think independently.

They used dirty tricks. Naruto caught a kunai Kakashi threw at them with his lung, then flopped onto his back and started spasming and spitting up blood. The real Hinata and Sasuke appeared immediately at his side, checked him out, declared the trial over and started screaming for help.

It might have worked to get Kakashi close with his guard down-

-no, not really, not even close-

-if among the gasps of horror and whatnot from a couple of the audience members, Sakura hadn't giggled. Everyone looked at her.

"Thanks, Sakura, we owe you one," Naruto griped as he sat up and they prepared to try something else. He spat something chunky and bloody out and glared at her.

"Sorry!" she called. After they ran back into the forest, she muttered, "So not sorry, jerks," under her breath.

They tried honorable fighting.

Yeah, that didn't last long, and is best left unrecorded.

The problem was, for all their strength of teamwork, their skills, their advantages, and their ruthlessness… They were a team of genin, albeit with some chunin level skills, against one of the most obscenely skilled ninja in Konoha.

Kakashi didn't even have to uncover his sharingan, and never used more than the most basic jutsu.

"This is a test, not a lesson in free jutsu," he told them mockingly, well aware of Sasuke's mature sharingan and it's unknown new powers. "And I'm not the one here who has to impress people, you three are. When I want to remind you why I'm the teacher and you are the students, I'll do it in private." He paused. "Where charges won't be filed against me."

However, even avoiding high energy moves and almost effortlessly keeping up with them physically, Kakashi was only human, with a human's limits.

"Tired yet?" Naruto yelled cheekily after two hours. "We're not. Every time they run low on chakra, I just give them some more! You didn't set a time limit, sensei, all we have to do is outlast you, and we can even if it takes WEEKS! We can pull those bells off your snoring ASS!"

"Well, that's one strategy," Kakashi mused.

They fought more.

Runners kept coming by with paperwork for the Hokage, but the limits of his patience were known only to him, and he hadn't reached them yet. Hiashi left for about thirty minutes, then returned with an even older Hyuga, presumably the former clan leader, because he didn't have a seal on his forehead. They watched Hinata's performance in silence.

And then, no more than twenty minutes after they had mocked Kakashi's merely human levels of chakra, all three members of Team Lie gathered in a neat line five meters away from Kakashi, who despite their best efforts, still had every bell dangling where he'd placed them.

"Okay, we passed," Naruto announced.

Kakashi actually straightened and looked interested at that pronouncement.

In unison, each member of Team Lie lifted their hands, showing off their bells.

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Within ten minutes of the start of the fight, Naruto sent more than a hundred of his clones into Konoha, secretly lead by four full clone teams, which had clones of both Hinata and Sasuke in addition to a Naruto clone, and supported by a dozen clones created by him directly, which would be the strongest and have the ability to independently make more than a hundred more clones each before they ran out of chakra and ceased to exist.

One team and a subgroup of clones was devoted to finding a store selling the exact same bells Kakashi had brought and getting the bells to their real selves without making it noticeable. Another team was devoted to combat engineering, essentially seizing, evacuating the tenants with plausible excuses, mining, and holding Kakashi's building, and by proxy his apartment, in a ready to detonate scenario. Still another team was devoted to 'psych ops', creating plausible copies of Kakashi in publically visible places all around Konoha. All of the remaining regular clones were sent to hold more than a hundred key positions across the village, armed with stink bombs, paint, instruments of vandalism, and carefully worded stories. And the last full team's job was to use Hinata's vision, Sasuke's reflexes, and Naruto's knowledge to infiltrate Kakashi's apartment, make off with his porn, and hold it hostage.

It was the last team that was having the trouble.

"…well..." clone Hinata said doubtfully, scanning the apartment with the full power of her shin'engan, the Kyubi gifted new vision that theoretically could see anything.

"Go on," clone Naruto encouraged.

"…it seems… simple enough…" She winced at her own hesitation.

Clone Sasuke sighed.

"Well, I only see twenty seven physical traps and eleven fuinjutsu seals which are probably also traps. On the surface it appears as if he isn't as paranoid at home as he is outside of it."

Clone Sasuke shrugged. "Well, no one really likes the idea of coming home really tired and having to spend an hour disarming traps before you can relax. You're supposed to be able to rest there, after all."

"Yeah, but this is Kakashi," clone Naruto argued.

Clone Sasuke looked at him as if he'd just said the dumbest thing he'd ever heard.

"Well OBVIOUSLY. But someone has to take the counter argument or our ideas go nowhere."

"So… there are only three traps on his door. I think I can disarm all of them with chakra and pick the lock," clone Hinata offered.

Clone Naruto waved his hand in dismissal. "Until we figure out the rest of this, there's no point."

Clone Hinata nodded and spent another five minutes staring into the apartment. She even (briefly) skimmed through a couple of the books to see if they inspired her any.

Which they did, but not in a relevant manner.

"There's always the suicide route," clone Naruto said finally. "Find the hidden super-trap by tripping it."

"Are you willing to go in there not knowing what the trick is?" clone Hinata asked.

Clone Naruto winced. "Not on a bet."

Clone Sasuke had been thinking, and finally spoke up. "Well, I have an idea."

The other two looked at him curiously.

"Let's," he said slowly, "…not… and say we did."

The other two clones blinked in astonishment.

He hastened to explain. "You see, the plan involves us taking his porn hostage. So long as our meat selves believe we have, the plan can move forward just fine. All we have to do is report that we have, and not dispel until after the fight, so they don't get the memories of not doing it."

"We don't, yet we tell them that we did," clone Hinata repeated, nodding.

"Hahah, way to go Sasuke!," clone Naruto cheered. "They don't call you a genius for nothing! That's thinking outside the box! Let's go report our awesome success!"

Several moments later, they stood together on another building a safe distance from Kakashi's apartment, mindful of the potential for flying debris, and watched as one of the weak, expendable messenger clones poofed out of existence, carrying the information back to Naruto.

"So!" clone Hinata said brightly. "What do we do now?"

"I dunno," clone Naruto replied. "Want to go make some naughty memories for our meatselves for when we dispel?"

"Do you even have to ask?" clone Hinata replied, and together the two of them ran off to find a spot where random ANBU wouldn't catch them making out.

"Oh, now that's gratitude for you," clone Sasuke griped. "Jerks."

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"You said 'each of us has to get a bell'," Naruto informed Kakashi triumphantly. "Not that we had to get them from you. ALSO!"

"If you do not pass us," Hinata continued in her quieter, deadly serious voice, "we have multiple clones of you scattered across Konoha in highly public locations. All of them sport disfiguring but plausible facial characteristics, and all of them," her empty eyes seemed to pierce right through him, "are prepared to lose their masks in a realistic fashion and display said facial disfigurements. Prepare for endless mocking."

"The fish lips were Naruto's idea," Sasuke informed him. "Me? I made the one where you have male genitalia tattooed on your cheek pointed at your mouth. His story is that one of your genin teammates tattooed it on you after you fell asleep, forcing you to wear a mask for the rest of your life."

"I gave you a dirty sanchez mustache," Hinata added.

"IN ADDITION," Naruto said loudly, commanding attention, "If you do not pass us, we are prepared to wreck your favorite restaurant, book store, equipment shop, and drycleaner. Now, we don't know which one is your favorite, which is why we have teams scattered across Konoha prepared to vandalize and shut down every single business in Konoha."

The Hokage narrowed his eyes dangerously at that. The genin might have just pushed their luck too far, at least if they carried through with the threat. And with Kakashi… who knew if they would have to or not.

"Each team also has a statement prepared blaming the catastrophe on you personally," Naruto added, pointing a finger accusingly. "Which would be quite accurate, really, should you fail to admit we've passed this test."

"In addition to that," Hinata said, layering it even thicker, "we have a team placed in your apartment building. Not only can I destroy wooden support members with a touch, we also have enough explosive tags to turn it into a smoking hole in the ground." She turned to the Hokage. "Do not worry, for we have already posed as building inspectors and maintenance personnel and evacuated the building under pretense of a gas leak."

It was Sasuke's turn again. "Ah, but never fear, we would never endanger your pornography in such a crude fashion. We've evacuated it as well, and moved it to a safe location." He paused. "A lot of safe locations." He paused again. "Holes guarded by clones and katon tags are pretty safe right?" He smiled, and it was not a nice expression. "I'm sure it's perfectly safe, provided you admit that we've passed."

"You see," Naruto interjected once more as their presentation wound towards a conclusion, "you told us that this test was no complicated, and all we had to do was display good teamwork as we fought you. Even if we had managed to wear you down enough to grab the bells, you would have failed us, and rightfully so. There is no such thing as a 'simple' mission. Never allow the enemy to dictate the rules. Never follow any rules for longer than it is an advantage to do so. Always look underneath the underneath." He paced back and forth, gesturing expansively and enjoying the attention on himself. "You're too good of a ninja for us to have a real handle on you. We know you would sacrifice your porn in a heartbeat if it was worth it, because you are an intelligent person. But we are prepared to make it more troublesome for you to fail us than it is to pass us and take us as your team. Because you are an intelligent person, and you can see that."

He paused one last time, and smiled, this time slowly and ironically.

"Oh, and this is in no way a bluff. Bluffing is what you do when you're out of options, and believe me, this is far from our last option." He bowed, once to the audience, and again to Kakashi.

Kakashi's one visible eye crinkled up in a smile, and he walked out of the clearing without a word.

Team Lie fell into line behind him, following their teacher like the good little students they were.

"I don't get it," Kiba complained. "Did they pass or not?"

"If you have to ask, you clearly failed," Shino answered.

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Authors Lie: Half my regular chapter length and over four times as fast. I dunno, people, are you enjoying this?

Reviews welcome!

Also, I would like to bring your attention to an excellent author and an exceptional fic I recently stumbled across that has entirely too few reviews for its length and quality. Check my favorites list for a fic entitled The Middle Ground by SkItZoFrEaK. Okay, the pen name hurts my eyes, but the fic is easy like Sunday morning. A romance/adventure fic starring Tenten and Shino, where, once they've actually met and notice each other, builds the interactions in a thoroughly enjoyable, believable manner. The focus is character interaction yet manages to avoid sacrificing plot, which is more than I can say personally. Give some reviews for that one, too.

I've never held opinions on Tenten or Shino as far as pairings go, but it was nice.


	3. Chapter 3

"While I appreciate the forethought and effort you put into passing the test," Kakashi mentioned offhandedly as they were walking through the village to the Hokage's tower to pick up a mission, "it wasn't actually necessary. Oh, sure, I'd have failed you if you took me at my word, but I'd still have kept you as students."

The trio stared at him silently, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He turned to grin at them. "You see, the other me left a message on each of your bodies for me to find. How could I turn away my own students? Especially since, with your arrival, my own students seem to have disappeared…"

Hinata turned and scanned each of their bodies, Sasuke did the same, and Naruto raised one eyebrow.

"Are you telling me that you, in our world, knew we were going to be cast into another universe and get in trouble so you left a message to yourself telling you to help us out?"

"Not quite that kind of message," Kakashi demurred. "But yeah, basically. That, or I just thought you were all dangerous enough I wanted to be able to keep track of you no matter what."

"I see nothing," Hinata confessed.

Sasuke shrugged.

Together, they eyed Kakashi nervously.

"So be good, okay? Let's hope it was the former and not the latter." He winked at them as he casually threatened to kill them out of hand if they turned out to be threats.

"Kakashi-sensei! It is you!" the cried as they gave him a big group hug.

"Yes, yes, that's very nice," he said, awkwardly patting them. "Now get off me."

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The rest of the day was spent doing a mission, finding that damned cat again, and Naruto had to be shown the way to his apartment, because it wasn't actually where it was in his home world and he'd been too sick and distracted the morning he woke up in it to note its location.

"This really sucks," Naruto griped. "All our work, all our equipment, all our clothes, all our damned hard earned respect, gone." He waved a hand in the general direction of his closet. "Did you see those clothes? I mean, seriously, I like orange, but I've always had SOME restraint when it came to duty clothes. Was I half blind or what?"

"By all accounts, you were just stupid," Sasuke supplied helpfully.

"Yes, thank you, Sasuke," Naruto grumbled. "And my damned bank account is nearly empty! Not only was I stupid, I either couldn't manage money or I never managed to get much of it. Son of a bitch!" He grabbed at his hair with both hands.

Hinata stood to one side silently, but in such a way that it spoke volumes.

"Yes, I know, Hinata, I know your situation is like a thousand times worse than mine. I saw your grandfather out there," Naruto replied. "Creepy old guy. The frown never left his face. I'm not a Hyuga, though, you're gonna have to tell me whether that was the usual Hyuga frown of superiority, a 'I've swallowed my dentures and I can't get them back because I'm constipated' frown,' or a 'my useless granddaughter has polluted herself with a demon and it makes the clan look bad' frown."

Hinata shrugged eloquently.

Naruto stared at her. "Really?"

She nodded.

"Shit."

"Holy crap, Naruto, have you looked in your cabinets?" Sasuke said from the kitchen. "At least it isn't all bad. You've got a ton of ramen in here."

"Yeah, not only was I stupid as hell, I had impulse control issues as well," Naruto said, sounding defeated.

"Hormonal issues too. There appear to be dozens of pornographic magazines hidden in your bed," Hinata announced, her black eyes still looking through the world around her.

"Really?" Sasuke asked. "Oh I've gotta see what bizarro-Naruto got off on. This has got to be comedy gold." He hurried to Naruto's bedroom.

"In my bed?" Naruto asked, wrinkling his brow in confusion. "But… I'm an orphan. I live alone. Who would I hide it from?" He paused. "DON'T STEAL MY PORNOGRAPHY, SASUKE! BUY YOUR OWN!" he shouted at his teammate.

"Yeah, yeah," he heard faintly through the wall.

"Perhaps you were instinctually ashamed of your perversions," Hinata offered.

"Ashamed? Not likely," Naruto scoffed. "I can only think of a few things I could possibly be ashamed of and naked girls aren't one of them."

"This is a different you. It could be one of the things you are ashamed of," Hinata reminded him.

"What is that…" Naruto said hesitantly, holding his head as all the things he could potentially be ashamed of flooded his mind. "I don't even…"

"HOLY CRAP!" Sasuke shouted in surprise and alarm from Naruto's bedroom.

Hinata and Naruto quickly headed that way, but they met him at the door, exiting the room.

"What?! What happened?" Naruto demanded.

"Naruto! Your porn…!" Sasuke said, stuttering in horror.

"What about it?!" Naruto demanded again.

"It's all men!" Sasuke's face was frozen in disgust. "It's GAY PORN!"

"…"

"…"

"…lies," Naruto said after a moment.

Sasuke's expression of disgust crumbled into amused self-satisfaction. "Well, yeah, but you totally believed it for a moment, which means you thought there was a possibility it was gay porn. Anything you want to share with us, Naruto? We'll understand, you'll be our precious teammate no matter what."

"I fucking hate you, Sasuke."

"Comedy gold indeed," Hinata said quietly, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she returned Sasuke's offer of a high five.

"You too, Hinata? You too?"

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"They really had you working out there," Sarutobi said, amused. He was sitting in his big chair, catching up on the paperwork he'd put off earlier to watch the performance of the genin. Kakashi had finally reported back to him that evening.

Kakashi shrugged and scratched the back of his head. "Ma, you know, they're really not bad. Making it look effortless was a lot harder than I expected. I'm a good teacher."

"In another world, maybe," Sarutobi laughed.

"Your words wound me deeply, Hokage-sama," Kakashi replied.

"So you don't anticipate any rebellious tendencies despite you not being 'their' teacher?" Sarutobi asked.

"Unlikely. I told them that the me from their world left a message to myself on their bodies so I could keep track of them no matter where they were," Kakashi said with a little smile.

"And they believed you?" the old man asked incredulously.

Kakashi's smile grew wider. "I believe I, and I mean both of me, have similar opinions of how to keep them properly in line. I've made something of an impression on them, and they seem quite ready to believe whatever I tell them, even as they try to figure out how I'm lying."

"They really do have your mark all over them, don't they?"

"And so, my statement is true, and yet a lie in so many ways, perfect for making them believe exactly what I want them to believe." Kakashi gave him a little bow.

"And that would be?"

"That I will kill them if they force me to. They are far too skilled with too little regard for others to be given a loose leash here in Konoha." He considered his words a moment, then shrugged. "I actually think they'll be very good at missions. By all their accounts, it's peace that leaves them unsure of what to do. We've both seen that before."

The Hokage nodded. It was a common problem among the more active members of ANBU, especially special jounin who specialized in fighting and spent a lot of time 'out in the cold'.

"I'm sure you can find a use for homicidal little genin with skills far above their rank, perfect shape shifting, and infinite chakra," Kakashi continued.

Sarutobi rolled his eyes. "Oh, sure. I happen to have a mission like that sitting in the pile right now," he said sarcastically. "Let me just get my secretary to give it to you. I'm sure they'll have it done in no time."

Kakashi bowed. "Of course, Hokage-sama. I'll get right on it."

"Oh, don't be an ass, Kakashi. I don't think there is such a mission that calls for their, unique, type of skills," Sarutobi snapped peevishly. "We don't get many missions that call for people we need to have underestimated, or who embody the kind of chaos Naruto's clone army could cause. We're supposed to be the quiet professionals, we don't use child assassins and we stay out of samurai wars. I don't know what the hell we were doing in their world."

Kakashi shrugged. "Fighting tooth and nail for our very souls, it sounds like." He cracked his neck. "Well, all we really need is a mission that's not what it seems to be. Something to teach them a lesson about good deeds being worth more than money would be a good choice as well."

Sarutobi paused. "…actually, you may be onto something there. We had a guy show up a few days ago trying to hire bodyguards, 'to keep him safe from bandits and wild animals.' He's obviously lying, so we checked him out. He's apparently the mastermind behind some project to economically improve Wave country, but he's stepping on the toes of a thug turned businessman named Gatou. I've been debating on whether to stay out of it or take his 'C rank' mission and send someone who can actually deal with it. It's a B rank at least, probably A."

Kakashi nodded. "Wave hasn't been a big hirer lately. A little kick in the wallet could be what they need, and it would be handy if they owed us for it. Naruto's team would be a good choice for that, I think. A little deception to get their interest, and a moral lesson on why free people are better than oppressed ones."

"That works, then," Sarutobi said, relieved. "Something to get them out of Konoha while I deal with the inevitable fallout all of this is going to create." He tugged lightly on his beard and looked out the window at the darkening sky.

"A shame, though," he said wistfully.

"Hokage-sama?" Kakashi asked. He never could quite predict what Sarutobi was going to say next.

"I wish Naruto was in here, calling me Old Man and being cheerfully disrespectful as always," he muttered. "This new Naruto, he's very intelligent, and he seems to have a control over the Fox that alleviates some of my worries about it breaking free, but he's very polite, you know?"

"He respects you, Hokage-sama," Kakashi replied.

"Mmm, true, but under that respect is fear, and I can only think of one reason I, any I, for that matter, would give a child, especially that child, cause to fear me." Sarutobi's face was glum.

"Because it was necessary, Hokage-sama," Kakashi voiced.

Sarutobi sighed. "We may have gained a useful prodigy, but we lost one of the few truly shining souls this world had to offer."

To that, Kakashi had nothing to say.

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"You're not nearly as good at taijutsu as the Ino we knew," Naruto mentioned offhandedly as Ino climbed out of the dirt. "I knew we were doing you a favor when Hinata lost that fight to you in the academy. You really got a shot of self esteem and started kicking some ass after that. Your rivalry with Sakura totally dissolved. I guess part of that was when neither of you got on a team with Sasuke, but at least some of it was how you kicked her ass every time you sparred.

"Really?" Ino asked, feeling proud of 'her'self.

"Yeah. I mean, you weren't up to any of our levels, but you did really good for not being able to cheat at it like we do," Naruto agreed.

"How does that work?" Ino asked, eyeing Team Lie curiously. It was a two hour joint training exercise which mostly gave their respective teachers time to smoke and read porn while Team Lie taught Team Ten.

Naruto made three shadow clones and walked off.

One of the clones spoke up. "Exactly like this, for me. Everything I do, the real me will remember. And the more clones there are, the more training I can get done in a day. Hinata and Sasuke just use their bloodlimits."

Ino's brow furrowed. "But, doesn't the rush of information put a lot of strain on your mind? That sounds kinda dangerous."

The clone Naruto looked at her incredulously. "Ino, you pull out your soul and throw it at people. It's the only thing I've seen disgust Hinata since we were eaten by the shoggoth."

Ino looked offended. "I'll have you know that's a beautiful and elegant technique!"

Naruto sighed happily. "I'm so glad not everything in this world is different. Never change, Ino."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

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"Joint missions can become great training! If my students do not finish painting their section of the Konoha defense wall first, we will all do three hundred pushups!" Gai said enthusiastically.

"And if my students do not finish painting their section of the wall first, I will make them do FIVE hundred pushups!" Kakashi retorted.

"Hey!" Naruto yelled. "Leave us out of this!"

"Well, if we fail to beat you at this challenge, we will do six hundred pushups and six hundred squats!" Gai countered.

"If they fail, it's a thousand pushups and a thousand squats, and I'll make them do my paperwork for three months. And they can't use kage bunshin!"

"Goddamn it, Kakashi-sensei, will you please stop?" Naruto yelled again. "Gai-sensei, please! Take pity on us!"

"You see, my precious students?" Gai asked his team. "It is a teacher's job to make his student's lives harder, so that they may learn and profit from the experience! Ah, my hip rival, your youthful fire burns most bright." He paused. "Thousand pushups, thousand squats, three hundred laps around Konoha, and they have to volunteer at the Konoha Center for Assisting the Elderly for two months, and that's my final offer."

Over the wailing and gnashing of teeth from his team, Kakashi solemnly agreed, then added, "You may have won this round my rival, but the war is not over."

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"So…" Naruto began hesitantly.

"…" Shino replied.

"Err, you seem like a professional sort…"

Shino did not seem to agree or disagree on Naruto's assessment of his character and or businesslike mien.

"Hypothetically… let's say there's these people. Say, a team whose name sounds suspiciously like *cough* *cough* Team Gai. Who, due to circumstances outside their control, cannot risk killing people for a while. How much would it cost them to have every old person in Konoha killed?" Naruto asked hopefully. "Purely hypothetical of course."

"Of course," Shino replied. He paused, unmoving, then answered. "More than you have. Your ramen fixation has left your account notoriously empty."

"Nono! Not me!" Naruto looked around suspiciously for a moment as he waved his hand in the ANBU signal for quiet discussion. "But, say, again, purely hypothetically-"

"Of course," Shino replied.

"-if the person was kinda like me and could give you chakra and powerful eldritch abilities to satisfy your deepest desires… how much would that be worth to you?"

"Would it allow me to kill certain people who have unhygienic partnerships with canines in an untraceable manner?"

Naruto blinked. "Yeah, uh, if that's your greatest desire, I'm sure it'd be something along those lines. Has been every other time."

Shino leaned forward a miniscule fraction. "I'm listening."

They quietly discussed obligations and possible methods for disposing of a large number of elderly Konoha citizens for a while, even as their other teammates and at least a couple of Narutos participated in Kurenai's training. Finally, though, Shino had to decline.

"No? Aww, why'd you change your mind? Decided you like Kiba after all?" Naruto asked.

Shino didn't move, but somehow managed to convey disagreement anyway.

"I simply remembered. Every time I ruin his life, he gives me this wounded look, exactly like that of a retarded puppy you've just kicked, who looks at you with hurt and surprise because it has forgotten the last time you kicked it, but dimly starts to recall that you have kicked it before, and that you will kick it again." He paused. "I treasure that look."

And so, Team Lie was stuck with a large number of mandatory 'voluntary' hours they had to commit to helping the elderly and disabled of Konoha.

They were pretty bitter about it, really. They would have totally won, even without shadow clones, if Kakashi hadn't actually picked up a brush and gone over to help paint Gai's side.

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"It seems as if this… 'new daughter' of yours prioritizes her team over getting to know her family," the former Hyuga clan head said to Hiashi, the current clan head, as they took tea together. There was no reproach in his tone, only in his words. "I do not believe she has spent more than twelve hours total in the last five days here.

"She is an active member of Konoha's shinobi forces, therefore her duties to her superiors must come before any nonessential duties to her family," Hiashi replied. He didn't say it out loud, but the elder Hyuga clearly heard that they would wait on seeing her choice between Hyuga clan duties and her duties to Konoha. "I have made inquiries and it seems as if, due to the unusual nature of her arrival and abilities, she is being put through a rigorous schedule to help determine her reliability."

"As if there could be any doubt," Hinata's grandfather replied.

Hiashi chose to take that as a compliment of his daughter. "Indeed, her performance against Hatake Kakashi was most exemplary. Despite expanding her fighting style with lesser techniques, her core skills are exactly what we hoped to see out of my firstborn. And even her reliance on tricks and other techniques is simply a set of tools to allow her to get in close enough to be more effective with our style of fighting. I believe there is no doubt as to her reliability."

"As a ninja, perhaps," his father said grudgingly. "She seems competent enough. A shame she never showed that kind of talent and determination before this… whatever happened. But we really know nothing of this other world she speaks of, where the Kyubi is treated as a god and shares its power with people who follow it. The Kyubi is evil, and no good can come of associating with it."

"I sensed nothing but the truth when the boy explained his connection with the Kyubi sealed inside him. Are you not relieved by the idea that we no longer have to fear the Kyubi breaking free and laying waste to all we have built?" Hiashi took a calm sip of his tea.

"Maybe it won't, and maybe it would anyway," the old man countered. "But even if it doesn't, that's only a marginal improvement over my new fear that it will use the unholy powers from its world to corrupt the minds and souls of our people." He paused. "Not to mention the purity of our blood. We've spent generations upon generations breeding out weakness and keeping strength and purity. Our one attempt to promote a powerful new variation produced the Uchiha, and we see how well that turned out." He rubbed at knuckles gone stiff with age. "Black eyes, whatever powers they grant, are the opposite of everything we want to see in Hyuga, much less one in line to inherit leadership."

"However, self improvement and establishing leadership over others is exactly what we want to see in a Hyuga, especially one in line to inherit leadership," Hiashi noted.

"Are you saying you're going to make her the official heir?" his father asked indignantly. "By all rights we should have her sealed immediately. That way we'd be sure to have at least some measure of control over her." He didn't shout. That wouldn't have been very Hyuga.

"I did not say I was going to declare her the official heir," Hiashi demurred. "Officially… she never stopped being the heir. As firstborn, she has that position. We simply delayed much of the process to see if her suitability would ever outstrip that of my youngest."

"Well it's certainly decreased with this new event. She's not even your daughter anymore, Hiashi. She's not even a Hyuga as we are. We should have her sealed."

"If she isn't a natural Hyuga, then there are others who would argue we have no right to place a seal on her," Hiashi noted.

His father sat back and thought for a moment. Hiashi didn't say he thought that way, because, really, what right thinking Hyuga would? However, he had a point. If they cast her out of the main family for not being a real Hyuga, that would give the girl a political angle to sharpen into a potentially dangerous edge. No, better to keep the girl as a true Hyuga.

And seal her for deficiencies elsewhere.

"I simply maintain that with her loyalties compromised by some sort of summoning contract with the most evil entity we've ever fought, she is hardly the kind of shinobi we want in a position of power in our clan."

Hiashi sat there for several long minutes, calmly sipping his tea. It was really quite excellent, as always. "I am not advocating for or against," he said finally. "But we had no plans to decide for or against Hinata at this point in time before this change, so I am advocating against rash decisions. We have entirely too little information. We will wait, and watch, and judge. If, as seems to be the case, the compromised loyalty cuts both ways, the allegiance of not only the last Uchiha, but the jinchuriki and the associated demon, or god as they claim, is a factor we cannot afford to ignore."

"For good or more likely ill," the former clan head muttered darkly. His son was right, he would have to take that into consideration before they sealed her. The boy would certainly be a force to be considered, and he was entirely too tricky to have shown them all his tricks. The Hyuga clan was mighty and steadfast, but the Kyubi was one of the few things that seriously scared him. Disgusted, he pushed his tea cup away. It had gone cold and bitter.

"And there is no time for such things right now," Hiashi continued. "I've received word from the Hokage that he is sending them on an extended length mission to judge their performance in the field. They are going to Wave country on a mission of deceptive importance and will not be back for a minimum of several weeks. I've been assured that I will get a copy of the mission report when they return. Perhaps the information contained within will aid me in a decision."

The former clan head could only nod at the subtle reminded that it would be Hiashi's decision, not his own. He was included out of respect for his position and wisdom, not because his son was weak or indecisive enough to require his input.

And below the two of them was the council of all the Hyuga lines' elders, a group of around a dozen branch members who had split off from the main family in separate occasions over the generations, having their own children and descendants. They were there to serve, yes, but they had their own accumulated wisdom and concerns, and would be included in major decisions. With enough support, perhaps he could get his son to see things his way.

Hiashi drank his tea. It was really good.

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Team Lie waited patiently outside the Hokage's office. It was another one of those creepy little things about the new Naruto, thought one of Sarutobi's chunin secretary guards. The old Naruto would have been pacing, drumming his fingers, tapping his feet, complaining, something. He had too much energy not to. But this new one just sat there as if he was a real ninja or something.

Creepy.

Also creepy was the eerily silent young Hyuga girl, who wore her hitai-ate over her eyes for some strange reason. She seemed to have no trouble seeing, though, or perhaps she was training her blind fighting skills. He rather figured he'd have heard if the eldest main branch daughter had been blinded in some accident.

"Come in, students," Kakashi said as he stuck his head back outside the Hokage's door.

Obediently, they rose and walked inside.

"Tazuna-san, these are my students," Kakashi announced. "They might look young and dumb, but I assure you, they are fully qualified Konoha shinobi, as hard as it is to believe."

The old man, Tazuna, squinted at Team Lie and exhaled a cloud of alcohol in their direction. "I dunno, are you sure they're up to the task of protecting me? Hair, blondie, and some little blind girl?"

"Oh, quite," Kakashi said with considerable amusement. "They're more than suitable for protecting you from any bandits or ferocious animals you might come across. And Hinata-chan actually sees very well. She's from a clan known for exceptional vision."

"Ah, yeah," Tazuna said doubtfully. "They don't look like they could protect a child from the monster in his closet, much less against thieves attacking on the road.

"Oh, we'd be perfectly suited for that," Naruto assured the half drunken man with a toothy smile that might have been intimidating if Tazuna had noticed it. "Monsters and demons are sort of our specialty."

"Don't worry, Tazuna-san. Kakashi-san is a jounin of some skill, so he will have no trouble protecting you from any unforeseen dangers," Sarutobi assured the old man.

"He means us, right?" Sasuke asked, just wanting to make sure. "Kakashi-sensei is there to make sure we don't kill him?"

Tazuna stared at them in surprise. Was the boy threatening him?

Hinata raised her hitai-ate onto her head and stared at Tazuna with two eyes like holes in reality, black voids that seemed to invite the witness to fall into a soulless screaming abyss in the vastness of nothing at all, accompanied only by a half imagined random piping not actually heard, music for things not at all human.

"GAH!" Tazuna cried, flinching back.

"Kakashi is making a joke at our expense," Hinata explained in a toneless, flat voice nearly as creepy as her eyes.

"It's funny cause it's true…" Naruto said with a happy sigh.

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Authors Lie: Heh, I think this chapter turned out even funnier than the last one. What to yall think?

Also, just a little note, go to my bio page and you'll see a link to a google group called Some Kind of Fresh Hell. The mailing list/group for my original fiction, specifically the novel project, is up and running. Finally. There are instructions on how to join on the bio page. I've sent out invitations to some of you who requested to join, but all too often you forgot that ffnet censors email addresses, so I get things like, 'I'd like to join my email address is (blank space here)'. So, follow the directions on the bio page and I'd love to see you join the group. More free entertainment for you, hopefully the feedback I need to make a really great story for me.

But don't forget to review this!


	4. Chapter 4

After they left the Hokage's office, Kakashi gave his team their orders. "Okay, my cute little students, we leave at-" He made a show of obviously looking Tazuna over, "the crack of nine in the morning. I want you outfitted for a trip of at least a month's duration, though I suppose it could take longer than that if something, I don't know, unforeseen happened."

Tazuna coughed and picked at his nose. The smell of alcohol tripled with each forceful exhalation.

Naruto tried not to recoil at the assault on his nose.

"And to help you outfit yourself, here's a requisition note for you three." Kakashi handed over a slip of paper.

Naruto took it and read it quickly. "Wow, and it's even good for approved supplier shops, too! Awesome! You've never given us one with this kind of authority." He looked up hopefully. "Does this mean we can resupply all the personal equipment we ended up without in the move and combat loss it into our pockets?"

Kakashi smiled indulgently. "Of course, Naruto. What are approved requisition forms for, after all?"

"Thanks, Sensei!" they chorused happily.

Tazuna watched this display of childlike cheerfulness with furrowed brows.

"You were joking, right?" Tazuna asked, stepping close to Kakashi and dropping his voice to a whisper. "About protecting me from them?"

Feeling mischievous, Kakashi decided to elaborate. "Well, they have promised not to kill clients anymore after what happened to the poor, poor Higurashi family."

"Why? What happened to the poor, poor Higurashi family?" Tazuna asked in horror.

"They were having a little religious dispute with their neighbors that divided the family and pit son against father and brother against sister. My students killed the survivors of the schism," Kakashi replied innocently.

"Gah!"

"One time! One time and they never let you forget!" Naruto complained.

"Of brutal murder?" Tazuna asked, seriously wondering if maybe he should ask for another team despite being told by the Hokage that there were no other teams available.

"Still just one time," Naruto insisted.

"They were clients, Naruto," Kakashi said gently.

"Still just one time we brutally murdered our clients," Naruto insisted stubbornly.

Tazuna paled even further.

"Besides, they had it coming," Naruto said dismissively. "They totally lied to us about the mission parameters. Goddamn C rank mission turning into some unholy S rank nightmare with monsters and lies and betrayal and all of us almost getting killed. I'd have tortured them to death myself-"

"Except Midori," Sasuke said sadly.

"-except Midori, if it wasn't for the fact that we were too busy to take our time and they all kinda died before we got a chance to really make them suffer," Naruto said emphatically. "So don't cry for those assholes. You lie about the mission, you get what you deserve."

"Ah, yeah," Tazuna said in a very small, faint voice. "I'll keep that in mind."

Kakashi couldn't physically grin any wider. As it was, his eye had nearly disappeared into a slit he was so amused.

"Ah, well, off with you, kids. Get a good night's sleep." He waved them off.

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei! See you in the morning!" Naruto said cheerfully, waving as the trio walked off.

Tazuna watched them go, then turned to say something to Kakashi.

Kakashi wasn't there.

"Oh, great kami, any and all of you who'll listen, please let me survive this," Tazuna begged.

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"So why do you think Kakashi-sensei wanted us to scare the hell out of our client?" Hinata asked.

"I don't know," Naruto admitted. "There seemed to be an in joke thing going on between Kakashi-sensei and Hokage-sama. I know I should be spending more time trying to figure it out, but I bet we have some time before it becomes critical and I strongly suspect we'll need more info. I'm just gonna drop a clone behind to watch the old guy. Now come on. Free weapons!"

"Yay, free weapons!"

And Team Lie had a very good evening buying things to kill people with on the village's tab.

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"One seventy eight, one seventy nine," Lee counted, breathing easily and rhythmically as he did one armed pushups.

Neji was silent as he stabbed two finger strikes at a log, spinning and darting around to strike from different sides.

Tenten worked on power, attempting to throw small weapons hard enough to smash completely through a two inch slab of wood. She'd have called it impossible, because two inches of hardwood was pretty damned tough, but Gai could put a kunai through a tree with no chakra tricks, just brute force, yet still be accurate enough to hit a coin from across the training ground, so there was nothing to do but train harder.

Gai himself was matching Lee pushup for pushup, and randomly calling out encouragement to the other two.

This was the scene Naruto found when he ran into the training ground early in the morning the day they were going to leave for Wave.

"Gai-sensei!" Naruto called. "Pardon for the interruption, but could I have a word with Lee-san real quick?"

Gai paused his pushups and considered the question. "Well, provided Lee wishes to have a word with you, Naruto-kun."

Warily, for he'd heard the story of his treatment at Naruto's hands in the other world straight from an entirely nonbiased source, that is, Neji, he stood up and dusted off his hands. "I suppose it would be rude of me to not even listen."

"Hey, great, thanks," Naruto replied. "I'm gonna be out of town for a while, or I'd take care of it, but you see, there's a girl who needs your help, Lee."

Despite himself, Lee was interested. "What kind of help?" he asked in what he thought was a guarded fashion.

"Great! I knew you'd be all for it," Naruto cheered.

Over by the upright training log, Neji face palmed. "Lee, you're so obvious," he muttered.

"Her name is Ino, you should remember her from when we were all getting debriefed," Naruto explained. "If you don't, she looks like this." He quickly transformed into Ino, did a quick spin around, then dropped the henge.

"What kind of help does she need?" Lee asked. "I'm afraid I know nothing about this youthful Konoha flower."

"Yeah, flower is right," Naruto agreed. "Her family owns a florist shop, and she works there sometimes. But that's not really relevant. In our world, Ino had come to a realization much like you, that hard work makes you better. She was actually pretty decent at taijutsu. Here… she's…" Naruto paused, thought about it, then shrugged. "Well, to put it as nice as possible, she's terrible. Relies too much on family techniques, which admittedly are pretty bad ass, but limited in scope. She needs someone like you to teach her the value of hard work and maybe kick her in the ass and get her to training the right way."

Tenten had long since stopped throwing knives to stare at Naruto, and now she was really surprised. "What's in it for you?" she blurted.

Lee glanced at her, then back at Naruto.

Naruto shrugged. "Me? Nothing specific. Hinata owed the other her two favors left out of three. We discussed it and decided to transfer the favors we owe over to the new one. I always support Hinata, of course. But really, it's just sad to see a kunoichi who was pretty good in our world just be… sad and pathetic here. Even Sakura, our Sakura, that is, is kicking her ass here, and that rivalry had long since gone Ino's direction in our world. Now Sakura doesn't have any female friends to push her. You remember Sakura, right, Lee? Pink hair, cute?" He transformed into Sakura.

"I remember her," Lee admitted, thinking the idea over. He didn't take his eyes off 'Sakura'.

"Please, Lee-kun, won't you help my friend so she can be my eternal rival again?" Sakura asked, balling her hands under her throat, wiggling her hips, and giving Lee doe eyes.

Lee's vision was suddenly cut off by Tenten, who had to act to save her teammate from himself. Well, actually, from Naruto's devastating knowledge of how to push buttons.

"Cut it out, Naruto," Tenten ordered. "Coercion is not cooperation. If you take away his ability to think rationally, we're not going to let him make the decision to get involved in your schemes."

Naruto obediently shifted back into the subtly taller, more well built, slightly older version of himself he preferred. "Alright, fair enough. I know I've earned no trust here, but here's a start. Check it out. Heck, Tenten, you might want to get involved too. I remember another Tenten who was damned good at everything about being a ninja, but had one minor complaint of having no female friends she could relate too. Too much of a sasusagefest around here." He jerked his head at Lee and Gai. It was (probably) coincidence that Neji was the other direction.

Probably.

"Ino isn't much of a kunoichi right now, she's really more of a fangirl I guess, since she keeps hanging off Sasuke, but I know she's got potential to be more. Check it out while I'm gone. Plot against me, hell, I don't care. But both Ino AND Sakura could use some guidance on how to become a real kunoichi, and as much as I love Hinata, she's… well…"

"A psycho bitch from Hell?" Tenten asked.

"Hey, that was uncalled for," Naruto replied indignantly, and surprisingly even Neji made a noise of agreement.

Tenten blinked and glanced at Neji. "Oh, uh, sorry. I retract 'psycho' and offer 'obsessive' as a replacement."

"That's more accurate," Neji allowed.

"Anyway, Lee, you might want to take a look at Shikamaru and Chouji as well. Chouji's so nice even I can't bring myself to make fun of him, and he's got plenty of youthful spirit, too. Shikamaru, though, is the laziest genius I've ever seen. Do the losers of the world a favor and beat the hell out of him, okay? I like the guy, but damn. Just… damn. Move sometimes, will you?" He shifted slightly. "On the other side, there's Kiba and Shino. Shino is kinda quiet, you probably won't see him much, but Kiba and his dog love to run, so you might find a training partner there."

Gai stepped up, eyeing Naruto speculatively. "Are you actually giving my students a mission to make friends?" he asked, slightly incredulously.

Naruto shrugged. "Only if they want to, at their discretion. But hey, you know? New world, new people, you might even say I've turned over a whole new Leaf village. Everyone here seems almost… casual about things compared to our world. It's weird, it's kinda unnerving, but I can see an attraction there. Imagine living in a village where you can trust your friends at your back! It's such an insane concept I just want to reach out and grab it to see if it's even possible," Naruto explained.

"You have got the weirdest concept of trust I have ever seen in a person," Tenten told Naruto seriously.

"Hinata," Neji said quietly.

"Except Hinata," she added.

"So maybe I AM weird," Naruto admitted. "I'm from a world you may not understand. And maybe sometimes I let 'funny' get in the way of being 'nice', and I'm sorry about that. I'm not perfect, I've messed up before, big time. But I've never betrayed my friends, my village, or my promises. And I'm also gonna be gone for like a month, so you can check out my story without my interference. Even _my_ kage bunshin can't work here as far away as we're gonna be."

Gai grinned at Naruto. "That's the most youthful thing you've ever said, Naruto-kun. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to resolving it. I fully support this mission to make friends." He turned serious. "Only after duties and training, of course, but just as teammates make extra training more fun and effective, a few new faces can really light your fires."

"Great! Well, I gotta go meet my team and grab my stuff. See you later, I'm gonna dispel now," Naruto said politely in farewell. He tapped himself on the head.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, yeah, that's right," he said, rubbing his head in embarrassment. "I'm real." He bowed to them, turned, and ran back towards Konoha.

Neji made a small sound of disdain. "He forgets I'm from the same world. No, he's just weird."

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"Hey, we ready?" Naruto asked when he met up with Hinata and Sasuke outside his 'new' apartment. Both were carrying small backpacks, thanks to the use of storage scrolls, and dressed in new clothing. Hinata still wore her forehead protector over her eyes, since she'd been hitting the kyubi chakra consistently ever since the bell test.

"Yeah, just gotta wait on Kakashi-sensei for a few hours and we can get going," Sasuke agreed. "How'd they take it?"

"Suspiciously and borderline hostile, yet intrigued and willing to listen," he answered. "Pretty good, really. Made sure they knew I was real, the respect thing of actually showing up in person, that kind of thing. We'll see what fruits our efforts bear in a month or so."

They started walking towards the east Konoha gate, where presumably they would meet Tazuna and go off and have wacky fun filled adventures and maybe kill someone.

"Naruto! Naruto-kun!" came a call from a strange voice.

They looked over to see an elderly man behind the counter of a ramen stand waving a ladle enthusiastically. "Naruto-kun! It's been so long I thought you were dead!"

"Yeah, sorry about that, I've just been really busy!" Naruto called back. "Missions and training and stuff! Actually, I'm on the way to a mission right now!"

"Oh my! Well, I'm sure you have time for a bowl before you go! It'll be right up!" The man turned and went out of sight into the back of his stand.

"No that's… uh, shit," Naruto said weakly. "I don't know this guy's name, there's no way I can pretend to be someone who apparently ate here often," he hissed in panic to his friends.

"Ichiraiku," Sasuke said quietly. "We ate at the one in our world that night that time, remember?"

"You had other things on your mind. The guy's name was Teuchi," Hinata said, equally quietly, drawing upon her training to remember the name of a guy she met once, in passing. It was an important skill for someone set to inherit the politicking of the Hyuga clan.

"Oh," Naruto said in a very small voice. "Yeah, I did have other things on my mind that night." He paused. "That was good ramen."

"And apparently you're the kind of person to eat a bowl no matter what, so you better maintain cover," Hinata pointed out.

Together, they walked over to the stand and took seats.

Teuchi glanced at Sasuke and Hinata. "And what would you two like?" he asked, already having apparently dished out a bowl of Naruto's favorite.

"Crab, please," Hinata said quietly.

"Pork," Sasuke ordered.

"Ah, Teuchi-san," Naruto began, hoping that he sounded enough like his local self, "one of the reasons I haven't been around lately is my team got restructured. I'd like you meet Hinata Hyuga." He paused. Sasuke had been the same in this world, but… "And Sasuke's still here."

"Good morning, Teuchi-san," Hinata said quietly, seeming to look at nothing. Sasuke muttered something appropriate.

"Ah. That's unusual isn't it?" Teuchi asked as he got the other two orders ready.

Naruto chuckled for a moment, looking down at the counter, then looked up and gave the old man a look. It was a look where he tried to put all the horrors, comedy, weirdness, loneliness, and hope in his life in a single expression.

"Are you okay, Naruto?" Teuchi asked. "You haven't been drinking expired milk have you?"

Naruto sighed and accepted his bowl of ramen. "Let's just say it's been a long, weird series of events the like of which you wouldn't possibly understand, and leave it at that."

"What, you mean growing up as an emotionally damaged child assassin in another world and somehow winding up here where everything and everyone is slightly different?" Teuchi asked innocently.

Naruto's chopsticks froze in the process of bringing ramen out of the bowl.

"…"

"…"

Naruto turned to Sasuke. "Do I have some sort of sign on my back telling people to mess with my head? Cause if you put it there, you can at least take it off."

Sasuke shrugged.

Teuchi laughed. "It's okay, Naruto-kun. The Hokage told me personally. Don't worry, I'll keep it a secret. Only my daughter Ayame knows, and that's because you've been my best customer for most of your life and we've come to know and like you despite your circumstances." He chuckled again. "Aren't you glad I told you before you put ramen in your mouth? It's cool now, by the way."

Naruto looked down at the wad of noodles in his chopsticks. Sure enough, they'd been out of the bowl long enough to cool. He ate them as politely as he could.

"Wow, you really are from a different world, aren't you?" Teuchi said in wonder.

Naruto shrugged helplessly. "What, I ate like a pig?"

"I would have said 'enthusiastically'." He laughed. "Don't worry. Here, you're always welcome. Even if you're a new you."

The three of them ate quickly, and Teuchi seemed surprised but resigned to see that Naruto had eaten only the one bowl.

"Listen, Teuchi-san, I'd love to stay and talk some more, but we really do have a mission we have to leave for," Naruto explained reluctantly.

"It's okay, Naruto-kun. It gives you a reason to come back, right? Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for introducing me to your teammates. I'm glad you found some friends in your world, even if we never met."

"Actually," Naruto said, fighting the urge to fidget, "We did meet once. Your ramen was really good in that world, too. Thank you, Teuchi-san."

Sasuke and Hinata paused and let him have his moment.

Naruto bowed awkwardly, then hurriedly slapped some money down on the counter, more than enough to pay for the meal. "Thanks for taking care of me." And then he ran off before anyone could see him blush.

But of course, Teuchi knew, Hinata knew, Sasuke knew, and even Ayame, hiding in the back of the kitchen, knew.

None of them said anything about it. Naruto had his game face on by the time they reached the gate.

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Some time later, after thinking about it for a while, Tenten ventured to ask her teacher a question.

"Was Naruto lying, Gai-sensei?" she asked.

Gai laughed indulgently, having expected her to ask eventually. "He thought he was," he replied negatively.

Lee nodded, Tenten did a doubletake.

"What do you mean, he thought he was?" she asked, looking confused.

Gai walked over and patted her on the shoulder. "Tenten, Naruto was taught to be a ninja 100 percent of the time by someone who manages to do it almost 99 percent of the time. No one sane manages it 100 percent of the time, and despite his quirks, I believe Naruto to be sane. However, look at it from his point of view. He's lost his home, his acquaintances, his superiors, and his very world itself, only to find them replaced with people and places just a little bit different. His sense of familiarity must be screaming at him wherever he goes. I don't blame him for wanting to create a situation he can feel more comfortable in."

Tenten nodded slowly. Gai's words made a lot of sense to her.

Lee spoke up. "What about Neji-kun, Gai-sensei? Shouldn't we be making him feel more comfortable too?"

Gai patted Lee on the head. "Who is to say that's not exactly what we're doing, Lee-kun?"

Lee looked over at Neji.

Neji shrugged. "Until they came and got me, I didn't have a clue this wasn't my world. I'd have figured it out eventually, but other than that..."

"Aww, poor Neji-kun," Tenten said with false sweetness. "He does like us."

Neji sighed, gave them a longsuffering look, and went back to his training.

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The weighted cloth net spun out silently, and dropped on the cat right as it finally realized they knew where it was and bolted from its hiding place. Immediately the cloth started thrashing as the cat panicked and yowled, but a small white dog landed on it at the end of an impressively long leap, fastened its jaws on the back of the cat's neck through the cloth, and growled menacingly despite its small size. The cat didn't immediately stop struggling, but it did quit violently thrashing.

"Nice throw, Kiba," Kurenai said approvingly. "And good timing with Akamaru."

"Yeah, great job, Akamaru!" Kiba said enthusiastically as he landed beside his dog and used the cloth to form a tight sack around the cat. Akamaru released it and backed off. He was perfectly willing to tangle with the cat, since he was a bred ninja dog, but the cat actually did outweigh him by about a half pound and was notoriously ferocious when backed into a corner. Brave didn't mean stupid, and he much preferred to have some layer of protection between his tender ears and that cat.

"And very good job, Sakura," Kurenai noted with special praise. "Those charts you made of Tora's escape and hiding patterns are proving very accurate. You are an asset to the team."

Sakura blushed and thanked her.

Later, after the cat had been turned in and Kurenai had largely left them to their own devices, they trained together, as they generally did. Shino and Kiba were prone to a certain amount of bickering, but they actually worked well together. Both of them essentially worked off of scent, but while Shino's bugs were actually more sensitive to the slightest traces left behind by the touch of a hand or shoe, Kiba and Akamaru had noses that picked up scents on the breeze. Shino could follow a trail directly with great precision, but Kiba was better at determining positions spatially.

Sakura was getting pretty good at tracking based on sight, but it was her wide ranging knowledge and perfect memory that allowed her to not just track, but outthink her quarry.

At least, that had been her old role in her world. Now, she was still feeling out her place in the team, with neither Shino nor Kiba entirely sure what to do with her.

She was quieter and more polite than the Sakura they remembered from the Academy. Of course, Sakura was always polite to teachers and other students, but her rivalry with Ino had left her shrill screams echoing across the schoolyard far too many times for that illusion to stick, and her violent rebuttals of Naruto's repeated attempts to ask her out put to rest any pretenses of 'demure' she might have once had.

Kiba picked up on it the most, with the pack instincts all his family possessed. He picked at her, he joked with her, he looked up her skirt, he accidentally groped her, and Akamaru peed on her foot.

In response, she cried.

He kind of felt like a jerk. Protective instincts welled within him, he poked at Shino a couple times, and Shino covered him in biting kikai bugs. He rolled around on the ground scratching under his clothes and screaming, Akamaru doing the same thing right beside him and howling even though he didn't have any bugs on him (He and Shino had an unspoken agreement where Shino didn't hurt or make fun of Akamaru and he didn't tear out Shino's throat with his teeth.) until Sakura stopped crying and giggled at their antics. Akamaru climbed up in her lap to be petted and Kiba patted her shoulder and Shino kinda loomed over all of them.

And they were a team again for the first time.

Shino might make fun of his intelligence or habits, but if there was one thing Kiba understood it was how to be a healthy pack.

Team, pack, same thing as far as Kiba was concerned.

"That was fun," Sakura commented as they started their unsupervised training. "I haven't done that in a couple of months, and I never thought I would again."

"Sensei didn't want us practicing our tracking skills on the filthy cat anymore?" Kiba asked.

Sakura shook her head. "No, it's not that, more… well, we didn't get it all the time, so Team Lie got it a couple times, and they helped solve the problem permanently."

"Oh, they killed it," Kiba replied, nodding in approval.

"No!" Sakura exclaimed. "They didn't kill it! We did!"

"A more satisfying outcome," Shino noted.

Sakura huffed in frustration. "No, I mean, we didn't kill it. We just made it not run away anymore. They just offered some advice on how to do it."

"Hmm," Kiba mused. "At any point in this story did I get to pee on the cat?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," Sakura admitted.

"Yay, story time!" Kiba cheered and flopped down into the dirt to listen.

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"Hey, Sakura-chan!" Ino called and waved as all of Asuma's two combined teams filed into the administration room that afternoon.

Naruto waved as well, and Chouji, but other than a grunt from Shikamaru no one else really seemed to acknowledge Team Eight.

"Hey, Ino," Sakura waved back. "Turning in or getting one?"

Chouji held up a heavy burlap sack that occasionally shook violently. "Tora again."

"Ugh, that damned cat?" Kiba complained. "Well, I guess I know what we'll be doing again tomorrow. He always escapes the same night."

"Yeah, catching the little bastard every time he escapes seems like a fool's errand. We should fix the underlying problem, not the symptom," Naruto said aloud.

"That would be the logical conclusion," Shino agreed.

The assembled genin traded looks, all sharing one thought.

Well, almost all of them.

"Leave me out of it," Shikamaru announced.

"Well, you know…" Chouji said with a helpless little shrug, and followed his friend.

Ino watched them go, then tossed her ponytail. "Oh, forget them. I'm in. What do we do?"

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"The underlying problem is that that old fat lady is cruel and heartless. I'd run away if she tried to hug me, too," Ino announced.

They had retreated from the all too public scene of the administration building to a quiet rooftop a dozen blocks away, and did a customary scan for eavesdroppers. It was still midafternoon and they were technically on their lunch break before rejoining their respective teachers. There was plenty of time for a little permission planning.

"She did try to hug Akamaru once," Kiba said with a shudder. "He had to pee himself so she wouldn't crush him.

Akamaru made a sad little whine and ducked his head inside Kiba's jacket.

"It's okay, boy, I won't let the bad lady hurt you," he said comfortingly and stroked his dog's ears.

"Addressing the true underlying problem would appear difficult," Shino noted.

"Yeah, if we start mindfucking the Daimyo's wife, we're probably gonna get in trouble," Naruto agreed.

"That just makes it a challenge," Sasuke argued. "Sounds like one worthy of our skills."

"In addition to treating the cat better, we also make her more willing to play along with the Daimyo's sexual experimentations," Hinata offered. "That way, everyone goes home happy."

"Oh, please, you know he's getting his on the side," Sasuke argued.

"I dunno, maybe he likes his wife kinda heavy?" Ino spoke up, feeling the need to, in a way, defend people's right to be heavy.

There was silence.

"Hahah!"

"As if!"

"Heheh!"

"Most amusing."

"All you men are pigs," Ino informed them.

"Arooo!" Akamaru replied insultingly. Kiba sniggered.

"We can't mess with her head, so what about the cat? Maybe we can convince it to like the way she treats it?" Sakura said hesitantly.

"Turn the cat into a masochist?" Naruto replied. "That has potential, I suppose…"

"Hah!" Kiba laughed. "A pussy that likes being whipped! Ow!" he complained, rubbing his arm where Ino had punched him. "That hurt, dammit!"

"Quit being crude!"

"Cats do not typically enjoy pain. Unlike dogs, they have sense enough to flee the hand that hurts them," Shino said.

"Bah, cat's are dumb as hell," Kiba countered. "Dogs gang up and kill the owner of the hand that hurts them."

"But, if you cannot be loved-" Sasuke began.

"Be feared!" Naruto finished excitedly. "That's it! The problem is, the cat knows that, whatever happens to it outdoors, with us chasing it and everything, it's better than going back to the Daimyo's wife. It KNOWS that, and so it will never, ever stop trying to escape. But if we were to turn that around, and suddenly the wild is a horrible, scary place…"

"It will never want to escape again."

"Exactly. There will probably be some incidental psychological trauma, possibly manifesting as physical or mental quirks, but that's not really our problem now is it?" Naruto's grin was positively evil.

"So how do we condition it to believing the outdoors is scary?" Sakura asked.

Kiba suddenly started laughing. "Oh, no, wait, don't tell me. I got this one. This is gonna be fun. I hate cats."

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The wire and twine trap made a soft 'tong' sound as its stored energy cinched a small net around Tora just as the cat stepped off the Daimyo's house grounds. The cat made a startled yowl but was quickly cut off by a chakra infused poke to its vocal cords.

"Cocky little shit," Naruto muttered quietly as he stuffed the struggling bundle into a bag brought along for the purpose. "Been doing this for years and assumed that just because no one ever went after him as soon as he left his house, no one ever would."

Hinata waved farewell to one of the actual estate guards, who'd been properly notified of their proactive efforts, though not the actual details of, and they left to set up part two of the plan.

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"Oh my sweet snookums!" Naruto cried, the enormous bosom of his transformed self shaking as he squeezed the cat until it literally couldn't breathe. "I've missed you so! Unfortunately, I've only heard the crazy lady a couple times so I have no idea what she usually says!" he continued in the same breathless, loving tone of voice.

"It's tone that matters when they don't understand words, so just keep doing that," Kiba advised.

"And one of these days I will hurt you for peeing on it first!" Naruto continued as if he was praising and loving the wet, stinking cat. "This is nasty as hell, Kiba!"

"Hey, you'll thank me if it manages to slip from your grasp," Kiba said dismissively. "With mine and Akamaru's scents on there, we could find it no matter where it went."

"You will pay, Kiba snookums, you will pay," Naruto-the Daimyo's wife promised.

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"I feel kind of bad about being mean to an animal, even if it is Tora," Sakura confessed. "I kind of like cats." She layered several minor genjutsu together, targeting the senses of the cat as best she was able. Genjutsu was usually linked to the senses of the caster, which made it easier to break by people who had unusual senses like sharpened smell or eyesight. Since no one but a Hyuga knew what a Hyuga saw the world as, genjutsu was basically useless against them. However, Sakura wasn't trying to fool the cat into believing it was the real world, she was simply assaulting its senses, and her skills were more than adequate for that.

Tora would experience the accurately recreated effects of a pepper bomb to the face as experienced by a regular human.

Accurately thanks to Sasuke, who'd won the jankenpo contest and had gotten to be the one to nail her with it. Hinata called foul on account of the sharingan, but was unable to make him give her the pepper bomb because he was just a little bit faster than her.

"Funny, you didn't seem to mind killing that pigeon," Naruto commented.

"Are you people ever going to let me forget the pigeon?" Sakura demanded in frustration.

Team Lie took a moment to consider it.

"No," came the unanimous answer.

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"Go get 'em, Akamaru! Gogogo!" Kiba cheered as he and Akamaru chased the cat.

Akamaru kept up a steady stream of delighted barks, his coat red from the soldier pill Kiba had fed him earlier. It was rapidly turning black, however, since he was picking up the kikai bugs that Tora managed to shake off in its madcap dash through the woods. They were polite guests and didn't bite or suck chakra from the dog, but the cat was yowling in pain and rapidly getting exhausted.

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"And you see, now I'm marginally nicer to it, at first," Naruto explained, petting the exhausted, shivering cat resting in his transformed arms. "A couple more times and I'll be even more cruel to it than she usually is, but it'll seem like such a paradise compared to what you're doing out there Tora won't even notice."

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"Easy on those suiton blasts, Sasuke," Hinata chided.

"The object is not to kill it, merely to pain and inconvenience it," Shino agreed.

"Meh, worked didn't it?" Sasuke replied. "See, he's heading back to Naruto already."

Indeed, the sore, drenched cat was staggering along to the one thing who'd proven consistently tolerable in the series of new hells it experienced every time it was away from her.

"We accomplish great things when we work together, don't we?" Naruto said with a grin.

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"So by the time we actually turned it in, the Tora was so freaked out that not only was he glad to see his owner again, she actually couldn't get him off her shoulders without prying and getting scratched," Sakura said with a laugh. "It never ran away again, and we got a lot more interesting missions. They even started giving us C ranks." She paused. "Though, Kurenai-sensei seemed kinda upset when she found out, and insisted we start tracking Team Lie to see what kind of horrible people they really were. That was fun. I'll tell you about some of those later."

"Aww, Team Seven doesn't seem like such bad guys. Why is everyone so paranoid around them, anyway?" Kiba asked, having been thoroughly entertained by the story.

"Because no one wants to get the same treatment as the cat," Shino replied.

"Huh, point I guess," Kiba admitted.

There was a period of silence.

"…soooo, are we gonna 'train' Tora the same way or what?" Kiba asked hopefully.

"If you have to ask, you clearly were not paying attention to the story," Shino replied.

"What, the part where they never had to catch the cat again?" Kiba asked.

"Yes, Kiba," Sakura said with a longsuffering sigh.

"Hey, you don't have to be so damned snide about it," Kiba complained to Shino. "I swear, how is it I keep forgetting what a freaking jerk you are?"

"Because, Kiba," Shino replied, "you are dumb."

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Authors Lie: Ah, Shino. You are so mean to Kiba. Ah, Sakura, you are so mean to animals.

Please note, I will eventually show what happened to the regular Team Seven plus others. Yes, they're in Lie verse, but not specifically the Lie verse I'm writing about. So if People Lie continues, it will be with Team Lie. However, if I DO get a bug up my ass and decide to write about the normals in Lie verse, it will be a separate fic entirely, starting from the point in People Lie when they would have arrived. Don't hold your breath.

Seriously, it'd be kinda tragic, really. Sasuke and Neji would do alright, I guess, Naruto would survive just because he's Naruto, but Sakura and Hinata… poor girls.

So. You may concentrate on events as I show them to you. Don't worry about the potentials. When/if I hit them with you, you may be assured you will not see it coming.

Thanks to everyone who has joined the Some Kind of Fresh Hell group. Now that this chapter is out, I'm back to poking at the novel. Entertainment and somewhat lesser entertainment in the process of being made that could turn out to be much greater entertainment in the long run.

Who loves yall?

That's right.

Me.

Don't forget to REVIEW!


	5. Chapter 5

"You're not lifting the tip enough," Hinata calmly told Naruto. "You're gonna cut yourself in a few moments."

Naruto jabbed the tip of the kunai directly through the bone of the first joint of his index finger.

"ARG!"

"Now, see, that's not even close to being right," Hinata commented wryly.

Naruto grimaced as he wiggled the kunai to get it out. Blood spurted and flowed freely, and he sent a surge of chakra through the area as he transformed into a version of himself that hadn't just gotten a kunai through the finger, effectively 'healing' himself instantly.

He glanced over at Sasuke. "What, no comments from the peanut gallery?"

Sasuke shrugged, the kunai dancing through his fingers at blurring speed, his sharingan spinning as he made sure he didn't repeat Naruto's flub. He was using the 1-2-3-4-5-4 method, sewing back and forth between his fingers.

Naruto and Sasuke were both playing Five Finger Fillet with kunai as they all sat around the flickering evening campfire. Tazuna watched them silently, and occasionally took hits off a gourd of really powerful sake. Kakashi read his book and ignored them all. They were seated on several logs pulled up out of the woods by Naruto's clones earlier that night.

Hinata had been training with powerful leg kicks against a tree trunk, a training method Naruto thouroughly approved off because it did wonderful things to her leg and butt muscles, but since both Naruto and Sasuke were getting the speed training wrong, she kept having to stop and make sure they didn't lose a finger.

"You're not even trying, Sasuke," Hinata said derisively.

"I'm going faster than Naruto," he replied.

"To get each touch, yes, but your movements aren't as fast. You're just more efficient because of the sharingan. You'll never get speed if you don't start pushing yourself."

Sasuke finally stopped and glared at her. "You claim you're so good at this, why don't you show us how it's done?"

"So you can copy it?" Hinata asked archly, a plan forming in her mind. Making him do it himself was actually why she hadn't demonstrated before, but maybe that was the wrong way to teach him a lesson. "Alright, fine."

She whipped out a kunai, spread her hand flat on the log Naruto sat on, and started stabbing between each finger using the 1-2-1-3-1-4 method. Her hands quickly blurred to the point only Sasuke's sharingan could keep up with it, then stopped just as quickly.

"There, you happy?" she demanded.

"Exuberant," he replied, and, armed with her slightly different technique, resumed his speed game.

"Lift the tip more, got it," Naruto said, thinking seriously about where he'd made the mistake. He was about to resume his own practice, but Hinata's hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Huh?" he asked, looking up.

"ARG!" Sasuke complained as he drove the kunai through the side of his thumb. "You bitch, you didn't give me all the movements!"

Hinata giggled, and Naruto laughed heartily.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and started bandaging up his thumb, but there was a tiny smile tugging at his lips.

Tazuna took a long, long drink.

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Neji cracked his knuckles inside his sleeves as he walked quietly through the halls of the Hyuga manor on his way to breakfast. It was early morning, not even quite light yet, but he would be meeting his team for first light training in less than an hour.

Hyuga Yaku, the eldest of the main clan, was coming the other direction.

Damn. Well, it had to come sometime.

Neji schooled his face into a politely neutral expression, slid to one side to allow the elder by, and bowed politely.

His seal activated with a burst of excruciating pain. He wobbled, and would have fallen forward on his face, except he'd mentally prepared for the event and had his weight balanced.

And just like that, the pain was gone, yet he was still gasping and shivering in reaction.

"So you are a true Hyuga," the elder said without inflection. "Carry on."

"Yes, Yaku-dono," he gasped out, leaning against the wall for a moment as he waited for his legs to stop being made of jelly.

When the elder had passed, Neji calmly straightened up, tapped a few pressure points on his temple to relieve the splitting headache that always followed activation of the seal, and resumed his journey towards breakfast.

As he walked he mused whether or not he should have wanted Naruto's blood pact to remove the seal more than some sort of time vision. Ah, well.

He had plenty of reasons to be angry with the main family, but strangely, he didn't really have the heart to get really into soul searing hatred anymore.

After all, they now had Hinata to deal with.

And that was going to, in the words of his own teammate, 'end in hilarity'.

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Team Lie, their teacher, and their escortee strolled casually down the center of the road in broad daylight. The birds were chirping, it was bright and clear, the sun was shining, and there was just enough of a breeze to keep it from being hot. It was really a great day for travel.

They stopped briefly after a mile and let Hinata raise her forehead protector to allow her eyes unfiltered access to the world. She formed a quick burst of seals to use a jutsu that extended her focus for a number of miles away from her body and scanned all around her, paying particular attention to the front and back.

After a moment, she blinked, an old reflex from the time her ancestors couldn't actually see through their own eyelids, and raised one eyebrow.

Then she dispelled.

About a mile and a half back, the real Team Lie stopped as Hinata suddenly processed a flood of information.

She looked up.

"You're never gonna believe this, but there's either a really subtle trap or the two dumbest Mist ninja I've ever heard of in the road up ahead," she informed them seriously.

"Um, what?" Naruto asked.

"There's two shinobi, mid twenties, Mist headband, lurking in a puddle in the road using some sort of hide in shallow water technique. The rest of the road is completely dry, and these two nin are just… there. Like no one would notice." She gave a detailed description of their builds, appearance, and the chain gauntlets they wore on opposing arms.

"And there's no one else around?" Naruto asked. "Because it sounds like a trick. Notice the idiots in plain sight, get nailed by nin in the woods, or something.

"Nothing. I checked the ground for a hundred meters down, the sky in all directions, and the trees and roads all around. Unless they're planning on using a summoning technique to get more reinforcements, they're alone," Hinata confirmed.

Naruto blinked. "Wow. Huh. I think we should probably go around. I've always heard Mist ninja are batshit insane, and they couldn't possibly be stupid enough to do something like that and not have a trump card hidden. Hopefully they don't want anything to do with us anyway."

Kakashi broke in. "Naruto, you've been dealing with extremely intelligent people in Konoha for far too long. Just because they've made it as a ninja doesn't mean they can't be stupid or incompetent, and Mist tends to promote based on ferocity, not intelligence. It's as dangerous to overestimate an opponent as it is to underestimate one." He smiled. "You've got to learn to tell the difference between unconventional genius and sheer stupidity. You wouldn't want to be one of those master planners who get foiled by some idiot stumbling through carefully constructed plans by virtue of making unexpectedly retarded ass decisions every time, now would you?"

Team Lie stared at him silently for the better part of a minute, digesting his words.

As one, they bowed deeply.

"No, Kakashi-sensei. We humbly apologize for our gross incompetence, Sensei," they chorused.

Sasuke smacked Naruto in the back of the head. "Nice going, dumbass," he snapped.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Naruto said, bowing repeatedly. "I will try harder. It won't happen again."

Kakashi smiled indulgently. "See that it doesn't."

"Yes, Sensei, it won't, we promise."

After a moment, Naruto turned to Tazuna. "Hey, you wouldn't know anything about ninjas out to kill you, would you?" he asked suddenly.

Tazuna gulped, visibly growing nervous under four sets of eyes. Sweat beaded and rolled down his face, and he grew weak in the knees.

"W-well, y-yes. You t-three have been out to kill me since we met," he said weakly.

Naruto's glare bored into him for a full twenty seconds. He glanced at Hinata.

She nodded. "He's telling the truth as he sees it."

Naruto glared at him some more.

Tazuna nearly wet himself.

Abruptly, Naruto grinned and slapped him on the arm, making him jump. "Hahah, we're not really gonna kill you, Tazuna-san. You're the client, after all. So let's go ask these Mist ninja what the hell they're doing out here spreading gross incompetence all over the nice clean dry road." He motioned at Sasuke and Hinata. "Clones. Let's see if we can take them captive without getting hit."

Naruto made enough clones for himself, Kakashi, and Tazuna. Sasuke and Hinata each made their own clone.

"Alright, Hinata, watch 'em, tell us how it goes." He sent their clone team ahead on the road, with them following a discrete distance behind, well far enough away to be outside the sense range of almost any ninja. Naruto also made a small army of first generation clones for backup. In an emergency, they could quickly become a large army.

Ahead of the real group, the clones were engaged in a heated discussion.

"Is Sensei lying?" Sasuke-clone wanted to know.

Naruto-clone looked bewildered and shrugged. "I can't tell. Either we really were over thinking it, or he's setting us up for some sort of reverse fuck up to teach some other lesson, or something in between. We're supposed to learn something about this, for damned sure."

"I can paralyze them as they come out of the water, if we're close enough," Hinata-clone offered.

"Eh, that seems more like it should be a step two," Naruto replied, thinking hard.

"Water conducts electricity," Sasuke noted. "I can drop a wire in and around the puddle and stun them with a raiton jutsu before they even come out. That should force them out and stagger them enough for Hinata to paralyze."

"Now that sounds good," Naruto agreed. "I had been thinking exploding tag in the water, but a raiton jutsu is quieter and cleaner. I'll have clones yank you out of the way and pile on as soon as you finish hitting them, Hinata. We don't want to get caught by some secondary trick."

Hinata nodded as Naruto made more clones, his solution to basically everything.

"You got real wire?" he asked as he passed two coils of heavy wire over to separate clones.

Sasuke-clone nodded. "You didn't notice?" he asked archly, implying incompetence on Naruto's part.

"Oh, shut up, Sasuke," Naruto grumbled. "I can't watch every move you make and you know it."

"1000 meters to target," Hinata-clone announced.

They put their game faces on and made idle chitchat, as if they really were just travelers, as they got close to the puddle. Naruto figured the ninja would strike just after their backs turned to the puddle, so he had Sasuke casually flick out a nearly invisible strand of wire into the puddle on the approach and hit it with his one handed seal raiton jutsu as soon as it touched.

Sure enough the water lit up with the powerful energy of Sasuke's electrical chakra, smoking and boiling in an instant. Two Mist shinobi lurched out of the water and began spasming uncontrollably, the electricity completely destroying their ability to move under their own power.

Hinata swooped in, hands ablaze with chakra, and paralyzed them just as Sasuke cut off the raiton technique. Second gen Naruto clones yanked them out of danger, despite their only being clones themselves, and pounced on the two enemy ninja, quickly tying them up with strong, thick wire.

The clone team spun in place, scanning for danger with all of their enhances senses, paranoid to the max as they searched for enemies hoping to capitalize on a moment of distraction following their victory.

Nothing and no one rose to challenge them.

"That's it?" Naruto asked.

"Mmhm," Hinata agreed, toeing them in the side and shutting down more of their chakra network in the process.

Sasuke looked bored. "We could have taken them when we were fresh out of the academy. Now it's…"

"Kind of hilarious, yeah," Naruto admitted.

"You see, students?" Kakashi said as he walked up with their real selves. "You've got to remember that you're not expected to face S class threats every mission anymore. Most 'normal' missions can be nice and straightforward." He seemed inordinately happy.

"Kakashi-san, are they dead?" Tazuna asked, nervously eyeing the two facedown Mist ninja.

"Don't-!" Naruto protested, then sighed. "Dammit. Tazuna-san, please, no names in front of the enemy. You just handed Kakashi-sensei's name to them for free." He made a subtle motion and all the surrounding clones silently moved off into the trees out of sight.

"Now, now, it's quite alright. At this point, it's reasonable to expect an actual ninja to recognize me. Give your old sensei a little credit, kids," Kakashi chided, flipping both of the paralyzed ninja over so he could stare down at their faces. "And no, Tazuna-san, they're not dead, but they will be in a few more minutes if Hinata-chan doesn't let them breathe."

There was a pause, maybe thirty, forty seconds long, where no one said anything or moved.

"If you're waiting on me to say something," Tazuna announced, "I've already gotten in trouble for talking once. I'm staying out of it."

"Ah, but Tazuna-san, sometimes, a little kindness goes a long way," Kakashi said with a smile, and tapped a few nerve junctions on the enemy ninjas' chests.

With deep, ragged gasps, the two of them jerked and heaved, having been suffocated nearly into unconsciousness. They looked up to see a half circle of faces, one of them the legendary ninja of a thousand techniques, Copy-nin-Kakashi, and the three ninja even younger than themselves who had nevertheless handed them their ass with a casual ease that spoke of power and control. One of them had an amused expression and something red and evil flickering in hungry eyes. Another had the sharingan, thought nearly extinct but legendary in its danger, and the third was a small, dark girl with an empty expression and her hitai-ate over her eyes.

"You? Telling me to be kind to others?" Tazuna asked incredulously. "Hah! That's rich!"

"But haven't you heard?" Naruto asked brightly. "Konoha is the home of 'nice', 'friendly' 'caring' ninjas."

That had, actually, been what Tazuna heard, and was why he'd gone to Konoha in the first place. Somehow he felt foolish at the memory.

"So," Kakashi said louder than normal, instantly taking command of the situation. "I'm going to ask you a few questions. If I like the answers, I might let you go. If I don't like the answers, I might let my students ask the questions, and let me assure you, you want me asking the questions, right Naruto?"

"I spent five years in Torture and Interrogation before they said I was getting old enough that the creep factor of being interrogated by a small child stopped being an issue and they made me move on to other things," Naruto supplied helpfully. "But I've got fond memories and a case of tools in my backpack, so show our leader some respect, alright? Even we don't get to give him shit, I'm damned if I'll let YOU."

Kakashi smiled at the Kiri nins. "Who are you and why are you watching a road out here in the middle of nowhere?"

The ninja with his nasty looking metal gauntlet on the left gulped and nodded nervously. "Gouzu of Hidden Mist, Copy-ninja-Kakashi-san," he replied extremely politely. "And this is my brother Meizu. We're, uh, ninjas."

"Of Hidden Mist," the other brother added in a voice that quavered only a little bit.

"Yes, so you say," Kakashi prodded. "And why are you out here watching this road?"

The two brothers glanced at each other with twin looks of despair.

"This is ordinarily where I'd make some sort of overt threat of serious harm," Naruto muttered, "but sometimes you have to be more gentle with genin. They tend to break if you push them too hard."

"H-hey!" Meizu complained. "We're chunin!"

All of the Leaf ninja raised one eyebrow at them.

"We, uh, we test well," Gouzu explained weakly.

"Huh," Naruto mused. "See, it's just like I was complaining the other day. When administration starts setting mandatory improvement goals with frequent testing, the teachers are just gonna teach the tests, and our new ninja are gonna come into the service with a serious lack of useful skills. Didn't I say that just the other day, Sasuke?"

"Not even a passing reference," Sasuke denied.

"See, that right there? What Sasuke just did?" Naruto asked his captive audience. "That's skill, boys. Bet they didn't teach that in your fancy smancy 'Mist Chunin Exams'."

"Please don't kill us," Gouzu asked politely.

"Ahem," Kakashi said.

"We were looking for Kaijirio Enomoto, a master mechanic from Stone country who has a knack for improvising repair parts on marine engines. Those skills are highly valuable in Wave country right now, so we were sent to meet and escort him to his new job site I have to pee right now," Meizu blurted.

"He's lying," Hinata said quietly. "We should spend some time on him to get real answers."

"Nono! I really do have to pee!" the younger brother protested.

"Now now, remember the terms of the treaty we have with Kirigakure," Kakashi reminded. "We're not to use torture on ninja captured during the course of normal, noncompetitive duties unless matters of extreme secrecy, national policy, they've captured one or more of our ninja first, or a monetary amount greater than twenty thousand ryo is at stake, unless we really want to."

"I like the last part. Can we move on to that last part?" Sasuke asked.

Kakashi loomed over the two captured ninja-

-they blanched in terror-

-and he untied the wire binding their arms and legs together.

"We have an image to maintain as a kinder, gentler hidden village," Kakashi reminded them.

"Full of soulless assassins?" Naruto asked, feeling somewhat disappointed.

"A kinder, gentler hidden village full of soulless assassins," Kakashi confirmed as he pulled the coils of wire away and allowed the brothers to sit up. "We don't interfere with the missions and concerns of our rival villages unless they're committing injustices on someone or there's profit in it for us, and it's not like these two fine young chunin are here to kill anyone, right?" He grinned at them.

"Right!" Gouzu agreed.

"R-right!" Meizu agreed as well after a sharp elbow to the ribs by his brother.

"Well, good luck finding your repairman," Kakashi said cheerfully, standing to his full height and stepping back as the two Mist nin stood up.

Neither of them looked anywhere close to Tazuna, and they moved with very slow, careful movements so as not to imply they were any kind of threat.

"Yes, Copy-nin-Kakashi-san! Thank you, Copy-nin-Kakashi-san!" they chorused, repeatedly bowing low, eyes to the ground, as they backed away.

"And remember," Kakashi said just as cheerfully. "If you turn out to be lying, I'll give you to my team."

"Hinata gets your eyes," Naruto couldn't resist adding. "Cause, you know, she doesn't have any of her own. Show 'em, Hinata-chan."

Hinata slid the forehead protector up, revealing the pooled void in her sockets.

"OH GODS SAVE US," Meizu said with a little scream.

"Show them the finger thing," Sasuke said, his expression becoming devious. "The finger thing!"

Hinata brought her left index finger up to her eye, lightly resting the tip on the surface of the black sphere.

Then, slowly, she started pushing her finger into the inky depths.

"IT'S COMING OUT THE OTHER SIDE! IT'S COMING OUT THE OTHER SIDE!" Gouzu said with a despairing wail, and retched onto the ground.

"Bye!" Kakashi said with a cheerful wave as the two of them, each supporting the other, lurched into the relative sanctity of the forest.

"Huh. Nice people," Naruto commented after they left. "A little dim, but polite."

"And he wasn't lying about having to pee," Sasuke commented, amused at the little wet trail the fleeing Mist nin had made.

Kakashi smiled indulgently, and together they set off again.

Tazuna cleared his throat. "I'm going to hate myself for asking… but what was the finger thing?" he asked hesitantly. "I couldn't see it. Not that I want to see it!" he added quickly.

Hinata shrugged. "A minor illusion I used to make my baby sister cry when she got too arrogant for her position."

"Oh."

"Hey, speaking of that, have you used it on her, you know, lately?" Sasuke asked, hinting at their new situation.

"No, not yet. I'll let you know."

"Great. I can't wait to see that again for the first time."

Tazuna shuddered. What a time to be out of booze.

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Authors Lie: Shorter than normal but I'm trying to remember the mantra of 'smaller but faster'. In general, even with a given setpoint like my old guildline of 10000 words per chapter, the sizes tend to slowly but steadily increase. Some of them were 14000 words there towards the end. And every time I posted two chapters back to back, it was because the one had climbed to like 19k or something. I never thought I'd hear people bitch about chapters being too long. Are your attention spans really that small? I mean, damn. Personally, I like people who write 'chapters' around the 60-80k word mark. And yes, I know people who do. Though, yes, it does sometimes mean I have to wait a few years in between updates, at least when the update arrives I have a couple of hours of good solid entertainment.

Anyway. I've only got like three or four classes left, and none of them are soon. So I've got some time to write. There'll be group updates and fic updates as fast as I can produce them, at least until I burnout for a couple days and veg in my recliner watching shows like 'When Animals Get Pissed' and mixing vodka with mood alterating pharmecuticals and enough red bull to stay awake and enjoy it.

Good times.

Review please! And be sure and tell others about the story, if they're not aware of it! Quote me regularly! But most importantly, I dunno, send me IMs or something if you have time, I'm bored cause everyone's absorbed with finals and I can't write the entire time I'm awake.


	6. Chapter 6

Zabuza sniffed slightly. "Did you pee on yourself?" he asked, wrinkling his nose beneath the strips of cloth that covered his face as the two ninja collectively referred to as the Demon Brothers ran onto the lake shore where he waited.

"I'd been holding it for like twelve hours! You know that jutsu, you can't just pee in the water! That'd be gross!"

Zabuza shook his head slightly. Not for the first time, he wished his coup had succeeded. There were a lot of really good ninja in Mist, and he'd actually had more than half following him. But many had died in the attempted coup, more had left him after he'd lost his fight against the Mizukage, and the very few he had left were spread pretty thin. The Demon Brothers were good hard fighters… but they weren't the best ninjas.

"Who were they?" he asked patiently, standing straighter and tightening his hand on the hilt of Kubikiri Hocho just in case he had to lop some heads off at a moment's notice.

The Demon brothers snapped more sharply to attention.

"Konoha ninja, Zabuza-sama, a full squad of ANBU or ex ANBU, escorting the bridge builder. We were immobilized in less than a second by a raiton technique and some sort of paralysis touch from only two of them, an Uchiha male and a blind girl who wore her forehead protector over her eyes. They let us suffocate under the paralysis until we nearly passed out, but their leader, Copy Nin Kakashi, allowed us to breathe so they could question us. Questions mostly came from a blond boy who seemed second in command, first name Naruto, who boasted of five years Torture and Interrogation ANBU experience as a primary interrogator. Uchiha's first name was Sasuke, the girl's first name was Hinata, last name unknown. Copy Nin Kakashi referred to them as his students in a joking fashion, perhaps they were his ANBU team, though by their own admission they're no longer ANBU and have to get used to 'easy missions' again. The bridge builder seemed frightened of them."

Zabuza scratched his chin with his free hand. "Sounds like a group of assholes. How did you get free?"

"We told them we were there on an escort mission waiting for an engineer from Stone, and neglected to mention our current missing nin status," Meizu explained. "They let us go under the terms of the treaty with Mist, with a warning not to fight them again." He gulped.

"The blind girl had no eyes. It was just two empty black holes in her head," Gouzu said, his voice distant with horror. "She said she'd take our eyes for her own, and then she…" He shuddered.

"Um, Zabuza-sama? Is there any other job that needs doing right now? Maybe… somewhere on the opposite side of Wave?"

Huh. He'd seen them grovel plenty of times, it was just one of those things people did to appease their betters, but this group of Konoha nin had really shaken them. A genjutsu, perhaps, or some other technique. He'd have to watch out for it.

"So how strong do you think they were? Kakashi's skill is well known, but his students?"

"Jounin or special jounin at least," Gouzu insisted. "We're chunin and older than them, but they handled us like we were children."

"Okay, chunin, probably," Zabuza said distractedly, lifting his sword and resting it on his shoulder. Though they claimed chunin status, it was actually because of a bureaucratic mistake that no one had had the heart to tell them about. They were really no better than a decently experienced genin, perfectly adequate for killing civilians or other genin, but useless for anything harder.

"Zabuza-sama?"

"Go back to headquarters, you'll be useless in this, and wait for our return." He wrinkled his nose again. "And get cleaned up." He shifted his attention. "Haku!"

"Yes, Zabuza-sama?" Haku asked, popping his head up out of some nearby bushes.

"Follow me discretely. We're going to kill some people," he said with a grin, already anticipating the slaughter. Kubikiri Hocho seemed to sing in thirst as he leapt into the trees.

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Hinata suddenly flicked her hand out, and a trio of senbon flew from her fingers into a nearby bush.

Naruto and Sasuke were alert instantly, and Tazuna nearly had a heart attack. Only Kakashi seemed calm about it.

"Interesting," Hinata said, standing perfectly still for several moments.

Naruto's expression brightened.

Hinata walked over to the bush she had tossed senbon at and pulled out a white rabbit, which was paralyzed with fear. It trembled in her arms.

"That is interesting," Sasuke admitted, his eyes scanning the trees.

Hinata petted the rabbit briefly, then wrapped her hand around the rabbit's head, placing the tip of her thumb at the base of its neck. A sharp bend and push with her thumb snapped the spine like a dry twig, and the rabbit quivered in death throes as Hinata stuffed it in her backpack for a later dinner.

"I hate rabbits," she admitted. "They live in fear. Better to be the fox who hunts them."

Kakashi suddenly broke into chuckles.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi turned to his students. "Okay, kids, pop quiz time. You have a mission to take out a medium sized opposing force, but you have limited resources available other than yourself. Do you A; divide and conquer, B; call for reinforcements, C; attack blindly, or D; devise and enact an complicated plan whereupon the enemies doubt the loyalty of their comrades through a series of subtle events that culminate in them turning on each other in a gratuitous bloodbath and you stepping out of the shadows right behind the sole remaining heavily injured enemy?"

"Uh," Naruto said, his eyebrow raised. "D if there's time, A if there isn't, B if I'm not far from base and I'm owed a lot of favors?"

Suddenly, there was a whistling sound filling the air, Kakashi jumped high into the air with Tazuna, and Team Lie allowed itself to be yanked to the side by clones, which then scattered well before an enormous sword nearly three meters long from tip to pommel flew out of the forest in a smooth reversed arc, dipping low, cutting through several trees as it did so, through the space they had recently been walking, and rising through more trees on the other side, finally burying itself in the side of a tall oak.

"Team, meet the man who picked 'C'," Kakashi said with just a hint of amusement.

A man appeared standing on the handle of the enormous sword, his back partially turned to them, though he twisted his head to look down upon them. He was shirtless, though he wore loose camoflage armguards, long pants, and strips of cloth that obscured his face not unlike Kakashi's own mask. He also wore a Mist hitai-ate on the side of his head at a jaunty angle. Interestingly, he also either had no eyebrows or shaved them.

"Sharingan Kakashi… I've always wanted to see what you were really like in battle. I'm sorry, but the old man is mine," he announced in a deep, almost gruff voice.

"Missing nin of the Mist, Momichi Zabuza," Kakashi replied cheerfully. "Also called the Demon of the Mist. Tell me, did the Demon Brothers get their name because Mist just likes hanging the term 'demon' on everyone, or was it because they threw their lot in with you?"

"A little of both, actually," Zabuza admitted. "So, do I get to slaughter your crunchy little team first, or you?"

"Oh, I think we'll leave the kids out of this one, if you don't mind," Kakashi replied again, this time the humor leaving his voice. "Okay, students, lesson time again. There's a reason he picked 'C'. He's not an opponent you three can fight normally, so my orders to you are, if I fall, you run, and you don't look back."

"Oh shit," Naruto replied in the affirmative, his eyes wide.

Kakashi slid the side of his forehead protector up onto his forehead, revealing both his eyes for the first time Team Lie had ever seen. His sharingan focused on Zabuza.

"Copy Ninja Kakashi, the man who copied over a thousand jutsu. I'm honored to be your opponent," Zabuza said, sounding pleased. Suddenly he kicked off the side of the tree and launched himself away, landing on the surface of a lake the road wandered by. "And your students, Konoha's sole remaining Uchiha, who also has a sharingan, a blind girl with exceptional hearing, and a kid with a mouth. Tell me, will you die bravely?" He formed a few seals, and his chakra flooded the air.

Kakashi held his ground as a thick fog rolled off the water, obscuring the vision and turning the daylight into murky twilight.

"Zabuza is a master of silent killing," he informed his students grimly as the mist flowed forward to engulf them. "One of the best. Be careful in this fog."

"Eight choices," Zabuza's mocking voice called out of the water. "Eight ways to die. Which should I go after?"

"Chakra, now," Naruto ordered, his voice low and quiet.

Tazuna blinked and glanced at Hinata and Sasuke as they both put their fingers in their mouths, biting down hard. Their hands flashed in seals, and even to the dull senses of the civilian, something happened.

Fresh demonic chakra, willingly given, flooded their bodies, and in return, two portions of life itself flooded Naruto. Deciding that bluffing might be in order, he allowed the changes to reshape his body, his whisker marks deepening, his eyes flickering crimson and slitted, and a faint aura of red energy wrapping around his body.

"People here toss around the word 'demon' very easily," Naruto growled, his voice also deeper and huskier with power. "I wonder what they would think if they met the real thing?"

Fog finally engulfed them, reducing their visibility to the point they could barely see each other, much less the world around them.

With one rather clear exception.

"Is he going to hide?" Hinata asked. "He's just standing right there in the open."

"Ah, Hinata-chan, he just used a technique to obscure everything with mist. None of us can see shit," Sasuke informed her.

"Oh. Should I throw a kunai at him or something?"

"In all my years, no one has ever been able to hear me move in the mist. I congratulate you, girl."

"That's a neat throw your voice trick," Hinata replied. "The 'silent' killer is actually pretty talkative."

"And the blind girl has excellent vision. …Hyuga."

Naruto started slipping explosive tags into Tazuna's clothes as part of a backup strategy. The old man didn't even notice.

"Quite the team you have there, Kakashi. And the blond just happens to be a spitting image of your teacher, the fourth Hokage? Quite the interesting team indeed."

"I hate jounin mind games," Naruto muttered.

"I'll second that," Sasuke agreed.

Zabuza appeared out of nowhere, faster than Hinata could react, his immense sword swinging in a wide arc that split her in half, ripped through Tazuna, and finally slashed through Naruto and Sasuke at the same time. Kakashi appeared right behind Zabuza, avenging his student's deaths with a hastily placed kunai that only pierced Zabuza's shoulder, only to be cut down in turn by a blow from behind.

Zabuza, for it was the real Zabuza, flexed his injured right shoulder and looked around. The smell of blood permeated the fog, but it was only his own.

A dead white rabbit lay on the ground, its neck broken.

"Those were the best clones I've ever seen," Zabuza admitted aloud, his head twisting around to stare into the fog. "But that alone won't stop me."

His response was a howling torrent of wind and fire, three Sasuke clones spitting grand fireballs and a dozen Naruto clones tossing his biggest wind jutsu, Fuuton: Daitoppa.

Water splashed here and there as Zabuza's water clones died, and trees were cut off and tossed about, igniting in the burning gusts. The mist and fog blew away as if it never was.

Zabuza rose smoothly out of the water, using only his own chakra, his sword cocked behind his back.

"Wasteful, hardly worth the effect," Zabuza noted. "My opinion of you… lowers."

"Okay, Kakashi-sensei, I think we'll stay out of it now," Naruto said with a rueful chuckle.

"Good effort, though, kids." Kakashi stepped forward, and the real fight was on.

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"Do you know anything about this guy besides what Kakashi told us?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto shook his head. "No, he wasn't in our bingo books. Probably died early, or something. Another one of those weird differences. I wish we could have gotten an updated bingo book, I'd love to know more about this guy. He's apparently some sort of badass if he can come anywhere close to overthrowing a kage. If it wasn't for Kakashi-sensei's shadow clone down there with ours, we wouldn't have touched him. I don't like that at all."

"He's as fast as Kakashi, and might be stronger, though I doubt he can match him technique for technique," Sasuke commented, his eyes tracking the movement of the impossibly fast jounin. He could see them, but he didn't have a chance in hell of matching their speeds. Not yet, even with his renewed focus on speed training. Being young sucked.

"He swings that sword as fast as we swing kunai. At the base of the sword, we could keep up, but by the time that motion is at the tip, it's far too fast for us. Add his strength and reach, and getting close will be very difficult," Hinata said quietly.

"If not functionally impossible," Naruto said with a sigh. "This sucks. This sucks hard. I guess this world isn't all sunshine and puppies after all."

"At least we get to see Kakashi go all out, or close to it, for a change," Sasuke noted, his eyes never leaving the fight. "His moves are inspiring."

"I wouldn't know, I only catch flashes," Naruto admitted. Though he was the most powerful on their team, he was also the least skilled at pure fighting, and lacked a dojutsu to perceive the moves of the two obviously elite jounin.

Hinata suddenly put her hands on each of their shoulders.

Naruto's eyes widened… then narrowed. This was where he earned his keep.

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Haku crouched hidden in the trees around the curve of the shoreline, watching Zabuza fight the Konoha jounin. His master was literally in his element, having guided the fight to the edge of the water. Kakashi took a heavy kick to the side and flew through the air, but despite the distance Haku caught a flash of seals and a pillar of water shot towards the sky, giving Kakashi a strangely solid vertical surface to hit and rebound off of, flying back to the shallows and the earth which seemed to be his elemental specialty, as he melted into the ground as soon as he hit.

Zabuza used a ninjutsu of his own, and spears of water stabbed at the ground even as huge fingers of earth reached for him in return.

They were both elite shinobi at the top of their game, and the fight would be decided by the first mistake.

In Haku's only slightly biased eye, Zabuza looked like he was going to win. The man was one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and he was a master of using his enormous sword in combat. Though its real strength lay in slashing through three, even four men at a time in a crowded fight, it was also so wide it made an extremely effective shield, and so heavy that Zabuza could effectively kawarimi with it in the middle of a fight. More than a few of the Leaf jounin's punches and stabs met only steel, and he sported several shallow cuts from attempting to press his attack against the tremendous blade.

Of course, the Konoha ninja was no pushover himself, and was lightning quick. He'd already managed a shallow stab wound to Zabuza's shoulder, and several more nicks and punishing kicks to Haku's master. Zabuza was taller and more muscular, however, and could take a ridiculous amount of punishment. He would win a war of attrition…

If it wasn't for that damned man's ability to read and copy his moves, and his truly amazing knowledge of jutsu. Kakashi never accepted a hit without delivering one in return, and just when Zabuza seemed like he finally had him, it would turn out to be a feint to lure him into the effect of some type of jutsu, from a whip made out of water that wrapped around his sword and delivered a shallow slash to his stomach, to a lunging attack from below ground that narrowly missed hamstringing the swordsman.

Both men were burning through chakra at a fast rate, and Haku remained poised, ready to throw his efforts in to tip the scale when the fight reached the crucial moment.

Scampering motion caught his eye; a squirrel running from the noise and flash of the fight. He could sympathize. All the poor creature probably wanted to do was gather its nuts in peace, and here ninja were destroying this part of the forest. Especially that wind and fire technique from earlier.

The squirrel seemed to be in a blind panic, and was running right towards him.

Behind his Mist hunter-nin mask, Haku's eyes narrowed. He flicked a single senbon towards the squirrel, aiming for the tiny gap between its running legs. If it was a real squirrel, it would be startled but unharmed. If it wasn't…

The squirrel bounced out of the way, faster than a regular animal could, and turned into a blond boy mid leap, his arm already cocked back to throw shuriken.

Interesting technique.

Haku leapt from his hiding place and pegged the boy with senbon in his knees and elbows, only to watch him disappear.

Behind him, then.

With an elegant grace many might call catlike, he spun in mid air, flinging three separate volleys of senbon at four more clones attempting to blindside him. Two died instantly, but two more threw shuriken before they died, and interestingly, the shuriken did not disappear when the clone did. Shadow clone? He'd heard of the technique, but never seen it used. More senbon appeared between his fingers in a fan, almost as if by magic it was so fast, and he easily parried the shuriken, noting that after the hard, ringing hit, they disappeared as well. The time delay between striking and dispelling filtered to the back of Haku's mind, where it would be automatically considered throughout the rest of the fight, and any fights against shadow clone users in the future.

He had to twist hard again, striking a black haired boy that appeared where he was planning on landing with his foot. Another blond and another copy of the black haired boy were behind him, slashing in unison with a kunai and a longer blade, a wakizashi. The boy he hit with his foot disappeared, either a clone under henge or the black haired boy, the Uchiha, knew the technique as well.

Since his eyes blazed with the legendary sharingan, his knowledge of the technique seemed assured. Haku moved like water, dodging the long blade of the blond and parrying the Uchiha's kunai with a handful of senbon, which he used to kill both clones as he leapt away.

It was an ambush, clearly carefully prepared, and he wondered how they had spotted him. Kunai flew across the clearing between the trees, trailing a loose net of wire which sparked with electricity. Haku had to perform a hasty kawarimi, letting a log crackle and fry in the electric grid. He almost paid for that kawarimi with his life, as clones were rapidly filling the trees and he landed right beside one. His elbow was faster, and the clone died right as the tip of its blade reached his kidney, leaving him startled but unhurt. A black haired clone flung a kunai at him and he was moving again, dodging easily, only to spot another kunai hiding in its shadow. Dodging wasn't an option, so he parried it, only to feel a searing pain in his back as another kunai took him from behind.

His mind replayed the glimpse he'd gotten out of the corner of his eye, and he realized that the blond had turned himself into a kunai, then dispelled and hurled a second kunai at his back even as he was dealing with the one hiding in the shadow of the first. Fortunately, his entire torso was lined with a vest that stored senbon, literally thousands of them, and they made for good armor. The kunai had enough force to wedge between two of them, but not enough to pop them out of their cloth retaining loops. It only penetrated the middle of his back by a half inch, fortunately missing his spine, then dispelled.

There was only one opening left to him…

…so he deliberately jumped for a group of about a dozen clones that were the first to pull out weapons and start throwing them. His senbon were much faster than the shuriken and kunai, and his skill was such that he was able to deflect the important ones and fly right through the mass of weapons. Some of his senbon were actually deflected into the clones, the others were killed as he landed by a series of strikes with his hands and feet, his speed and flexibility quite superior to the blond ninja's.

But apparently he had been second guessed, because no sooner had he landed than another ninja was there, and he blocked and parried desperately as the apparently blind female aggressively pressed him, denying him a chance to leap away by keeping him on the defensive.

She had quick feet and quicker hands, and the merest brush of her fingers sent agony up his leg. She was also real, ignoring the shallow scratches a rake of his senbon left across her neck. He prepared to take her down hard, but a tremendous ball of fire enveloped them both.

Haku's screamed in shock and surprise, his bloodlimit activating instinctually, encasing him in a sheath of ice, which shattered as he twisted and took the oncoming ninja in the gut with a palm strike, twisting and flinging him into the nearest of the two figures rushing at him from behind.

Hasty volleys of senbon halted the approach of the third figure, the girl again, who wheeled her arms frantically to deflect all his needles, and seemed completely unhurt by the ball of fire that had engulfed them both. How had she performed kawarimi in time? It was all but instantaneous, and he hadn't even seen her make any seals. He would have to watch that.

Actually, they were pressing him hard, each quite dangerous alone, and extremely difficult to deal with together in addition to the dozens of clones that had joined the fight.

He didn't have time for this, Master Zabuza could need him right now.

Sasuke's sharingan spun as Haku hurled a brief, scattered volley of senbon with one hand and formed seals with the other. Chakra, strange elemental chakra alien in nature to Sasuke, poured off of the slender figure and quickly crystallized, encircling them faster than any of them could have hoped to move.

"Oh, damn. I don't know anything about this technique," Naruto said with a mild curse as he accepted Sasuke's help getting back to his feet.

They had been trapped in a dome made out of ice mirrors, and out of every mirror, the figure of their masked opponent stared back at them.

"Few would," came the gentle voice of their opponent from all around them. "This is my bloodline limit. I call this technique Demonic Ice Mirrors." Suddenly the images of Haku flickered, and senbon rained down on them from all sides.

Sasuke dodged and whirled. Hinata simply snatched them out of the air, it being nothing compared to the numbers she had to deal with during Naruto's training so long ago.

Naruto ignored them, barely feeling the pinpricks of pain as they hit nonvital areas on his body. The red chakra of the Kyubi forced them out, letting them fall to the suddenly frozen ground with a patter of sharp tinks.

"That is the least part of what I can do within this dome of ice. Will you yield?" Haku asked.

"Demons, again? Really?" Naruto asked spinning in a slow circle as he looked at the dome of enemy images. "And this is your bloodlimit? Kinda lame, really. The only cool thing about it is the ice. Any of us could break this. All of us could escape it." He paused briefly, glancing at Sasuke and Hinata.

Sasuke chuckled. "Alright. Give him hell, Hinata."

"Show him the folly of his ways. We'll take the incredibly obvious exit out to give you some room to play." With a sharp kai to focus his power, Naruto slammed his fist into the frozen ground, shattering the top layer into broken earth.

Ignoring the byplay as Hinata flowed around them, deflecting the increasingly panicked needles Haku threw to stop their escape, Sasuke and Naruto formed seals, learned by Hinata from a scroll locked in the ANBU library, and emulated Kakashi, dropping beneath the ground without a ripple with the power of the Underground Fish Projection technique.

Haku's heart rate tripled as he realized his most powerful ice technique would not capture them, and he burned more chakra, flickering in and out of his mirrors, flinging senbon as he went.

Hinata's arms became a blur as she deflected them just as fast, and she started a run towards the mirror wall, getting out of the center.

More senbon flew, a veritable rain of steel needles hurtling towards the kunoichi at speeds even she couldn't deal with.

So she quit handling them individually, called upon the excess of Kyubi chakra in her coils, a gift of raw, destructive energy, and smiled.

"KAITEN!"

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Authors Lie: Again kinda shortish, but I wanted to get this one out as early as possible because I've got a long ass road trip tomorrow and reading your reviews will be my only source of joy for the next 30 hours or more. (I always stop at a store or rest stop before I get on the internet, don't worry.) Also, no, this won't be your typical Wave arc. Team Lie and Kakashi are pretty good… but Zabuza has more than Haku up his sleeve, and more than the Demon Brothers waiting in the wings. Next update as soon as I can. Reviews welcome!


	7. Chapter 7

The forest lit up with a roaring, slow explosion as demonic chakra, expelled across Hinata's whole body, spiraled out as she twirled. It slapped aside the hundreds of incoming senbon with contemptuous ease, then kept going, maintaining its malignant coherency as it brushed against the unnaturally frozen ice mirrors, each one containing a fraction of Haku's specially attuned chakra.

The ice, which could shrug off most normal strikes, shattered into chunks and was tossed about as the spiraling dome of destruction grew. Whips of energy scoured the earth bare, smashed trees into splinters, and disrupted Haku's chakra even as he sought to abandon his trap turned prison.

A new clearing was formed, perfectly circular, with trees, dirt, and ice chunks forming an irregular wall around it.

Haku weathered the storm by flinging himself out of an ice mirror and leaping high, landing after the worst of the destruction was over. Still he was tossed like a leaf and flung hard away from Hinata, the demonic chakra tearing clothes and burning skin as it connected.

Hinata paused her twirl, her arms extended, momentarily unable to continue her assault as her sense of balance caught up to the world.

Haku rolled to his feet as fast as possible give his pains, and it was a good thing, for Naruto came charging out of the forest, fingers twisted almost into claws as he reached for the masked ninja. As the toughest of the team and with an ability to heal from nearly anything, he figured he'd simply take whatever the hunter nin threw at him, crash into him, and hold him long enough for the others to arrive and finish the capture.

Senbon hit him in the knees, which stung like fire and slowed his run, but Naruto was pumped. More senbon struck him in the lower chest, then upper chest, perforating his lungs, but it was hardly the first time that had happened.

Naruto's seemingly unstoppable charge left Haku desperate, and even as he tried to backpedal away, reflexes ingrained by his master kicked in, and Haku went for one of the many acupuncture points he knew.

A single, carefully aimed senbon hit Naruto in the bridge of his nose, just slightly to the left of true center, coming very near to putting his eye out. Blindness might actually have been preferable, since the needle penetrated bone and cartilage, burying itself deep in his sinus cavity, right into a little known spot that happened to be extremely sensitive. It was the same spot that caused some sinus headaches in cold and allergy sufferers, only instead of a little increased pressure, it now had a ten inch steel needle in it.

The mother of all migraines ripped through Naruto's head, and he dropped, screaming in agony.

No time to worry about Naruto now. Screaming was bad, but screaming was good. Screaming meant alive.

Sasuke was close behind Naruto's charge, and was Haku's next target as he tried to defend himself. However, unlike Naruto, Sasuke didn't have any illusions of invulnerability. In fact, the thing he used his sharingan for the most was to avoid getting hit.

Kunai in hand, he deflected senbon after senbon, shifting slightly so the few that did make it through didn't hit the spot they were aiming for. His reaction time decreased and Haku's panicked throws became faster, so he finally simply moved his left forearm in a carefully planned arc, intercepting more than a dozen needles headed for his vulnerable (and handsome, he rather thought) face. Needles through his arm made it unreliable, but his right was fine. A cross grab as he reached Haku snaked his hand through a defensive block so he could snag the brown cloth covering Haku's chest. Then, pushing and twisting his body, he spun himself almost completely upside down relative to Haku, and slammed his foot into the side of the mask covered head.

Haku dropped, and Sasuke was on him, pulling wire out of hidden pockets and quickly wrapping him up. Three Naruto clones joined him, amazingly still alive despite Naruto still screaming his head off.

"Zabuza will come," Hinata whispered. "I'll get at least one hit in, but be ready to yank me out if I don't get a kill."

"Wait! Hinata...!" Sasuke protested, but it was too late. Hinata had already drawn on the dregs of her kyubi gifted chakra and used her copy of Naruto's transformation to turn into a very convincing Haku clone. The real Haku was quickly yanked out of sight, and a clone rapidly took Hinata's place at his side.

"She's the only one fast enough," the Naruto-as-Hinata whispered beside him. "It's a good plan. I just hope it works."

Sasuke wasn't nearly as optimistic. He simply hoped Hinata's ambitious plan didn't end very, very badly.

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Zabuza was in the middle of a jutsu when he heard the explosion. Canceling a jutsu wasn't always easy, half formed elemental chakra often did not want to be reabsorbed, but he was up to the task since his elemental affinity was water. He slammed his sword into the ground in front of him, blocking attacks from Kakashi, and glanced towards the forest.

Right away, he knew what had happened.

That damned Hyuga girl had spotted Haku.

Haku was good. Really, at some aspects of being a ninja, Haku was even better than he was. Zabuza was an unquestioned master of silent killing… but Haku showed far more promise at the art of assassination. Zabuza massacred people, Haku left it nice and ambiguous.

And Kakashi's damned students had spotted him. An ambush Zabuza himself would simply power through would be extremely difficult for Haku to deal with.

This simple mission was rapidly turning into a headache.

Kakashi was a problem. He obviously thought his team was more than sufficient to deal with any backup Zabuza might have, since instead of rushing to his student's aid, he attempted to block Zabuza.

Damn. Damn damn.

Well, he'd always been best at going through an obstacle.

The Konoha ninja was a frustratingly slippery opponent, almost impossible to pin down, perhaps due to the sharingan he carried. But their exchanges had left their relative strengths clear, and despite the copy wheel eye, Kakashi was at a disadvantage in a close quarters taijutsu match.

Zabuza's sword left a shallow gash that sliced vertically through the front of his green vest, despite the thick armor woven through it, and left the Leaf jounin with a shallow slash down his chest despite his best efforts to get out of Zabuza's way.

No one could stop the Demon of the Mist when he wanted to go somewhere.

He found the site of their students' battle with ease, as apparently some sort of bomb or major release of destructive energy had happened just inside the forest on the side of the lake. Trees and brush were shredded and tossed around, forming a loose circular wall, with large chunks of ice embedded in it, and the ground itself was scoured bare and smoking, though there were puddles here and there where ice had melted.

Haku was on his knees in the center of the clearing, shaking and clearly injured, and the blond kid that looked like the fourth Hokage was down on the ground, screaming his head off and rolling back and forth.

One glance at the blond told him all he needed to know. The kid was peppered with senbon from his legs to his throat, but the real nasty one was a single senbon that protruded from his face. Haku knew acupuncture, and his skill with senbon was such that, if he wanted to, the boy could have taken down Zabuza himself with a single needle. The senbon was literally penetrating the sinus headache pain point, and the blond boy couldn't even touch it to remove it, such was his pain. His screams left the whole tableau with a comforting, familiar air he'd seen on countless battlefields.

Kakashi's other two students crouched warily at the edge of the clearing, clearly wanting to go to their teammate's aid, but frozen in wary indecision as he arrived. They didn't seem especially tired, despite the big techniques they'd been throwing around, so maybe there was something to their attempts to kill him with chakra intensive moves right off the bat. They clearly had exceptional chakra reserves. However, the Uchiha's entire left side bristled with senbon, and his arm hung limp. Haku was dangerous when pressed, and he was delighted to see that Kakashi's students had found it out the hard way.

"As to be expected of the Legendary Copy Ninja, I suppose," he said aloud as he landed near Haku, his sword inverted into a full body shield position, ready to defend from any attack. "Your students are quite good for their age."

Haku coughed and spit blood on the ground, and he glanced at the boy. His breathing was ragged and pained, and that meant it was probably time to concede the field.

Kakashi arrived on the scene, landing much closer, putting himself between Zabuza and the still screaming, flailing blond.

Zabuza raised his sword warily, prepared to continue the battle if need be.

"Well, isn't this the pickle," Kakashi said grimly. "We're not going to give you the old man. Konoha keeps its contracts. However, we're prepared to overlook your missing nin status. Mist is usually late in its payments, anyway, and is no friend of ours, so we might even forget to report your sighting as is custom. Just take your student and go."

Zabuza shrugged. "Well, I suppose the day is yours, even though you're hurt worse than I am, but you're gonna have to offer something better than that long term. I keep my contracts, too. And the thing about Mist hunter nin is… they bleed just like everyone else."

Haku attacked.

He'd never doubted for a second that the figure was Haku. The chakra was right, the smell was right, even the movements were right.

But Zabuza hadn't gotten to the point he was in life by trusting anyone, ever.

Even as Haku's hand glowed with chakra and stabbed for his side, he was using his enormous strength to shove himself farther away and put Kubikiri Hocho between himself and the suddenly treacherous Haku.

And then the unthinkable happened. Kubikiri Hocho, the generations old blade of Mist's finest warriors, an exquisitely crafted blend of the finest steel, seals, and his own channeled chakra, shattered like glass under the blow, fracture lines spider webbing out along the currents his spirit made in the blade. He was left holding nothing more than the long handle and the crossbar that formed the base and guard of the blade.

His boot lashed out, catching Haku in the chest and sending him flying, disrupting the kawarimi attempt someone had made on the impostor. He would have cut the little ninja in two, but his beloved blade was shattered. Pissed beyond all measure, he hurled the broken remains even before the kid landed, and even without the edge it was still several kilos of metal flung with his immense strength.

Despite the terrible pain in her ribs, Hinata was able to get off a partial Kaiten in mid air. Unfortunately, without the momentum of the spin, the chakra she exuded only partially softened the blow, turning a deadly projectile into one that was merely bruising. Though too late to save her from the blows, her landing was cushioned by a trio of clones.

Kakashi was already moving to kill Zabuza during his moment of distraction, but without the preparation time it took to get his most deadly ninjutsu activated, he had to improvise on the fly. Raikiri took precious seconds to form, and there was no time for seals, but there was another move he knew, borrowed from his friend Gai.

Opening the gates only took a burst of will, once you knew the trick, and Kakashi's body spun with complicated yet elegant footwork, unleashing the leaf whirlwind on Zabuza with devastating force, interrupting the chain of retaliation the Mist nin was about to unleash on one of his students.

Zabuza found himself tossed away, and winced at the bone bruising force Kakashi was suddenly displaying. His earlier hits hadn't been anywhere near that dangerous, it was the blade he'd needed to watch for.

Still, Kakashi broke off after the taijutsu move, unwilling to continue to mix it up with Zabuza in close quarters. A quick glance around after he landed found a trio of blonds supporting the Haku who'd attacked him, who faded back into the Hyuga girl, the still screaming blond being dragged off by the Uchiha, possibly the real Haku, wrapped in wire, being held up by more blond clones, and Sharingan Kakashi grimly beginning a series of seals as electricity started arcing over his hand.

Damn. Time to go.

Kakashi sighed tiredly as Zabuza disappeared into the forest, almost certainly along a prepared escape route littered with traps. No, as dangerous as it was to have the Demon of the Mist running around free and out for blood, they were in no position to object.

He stared around at his students. Sasuke's left arm was studded with needles, and ever as he watched, Sasuke pulled one out and threw it to the ground. Naruto had far more in him, but it was the one in his face that had left him screaming unendingly as his hands clutched at it then drew away. His clones looked worried, even as they escorted the hobbling Hinata, who was still clutching the hilt of Zabuza's sword, stained with both his and Hinata's own blood.

"I was gone for less than a minute to fight a ninja, and you couldn't say out of trouble that long?" he complained with an ironic tone, and snatched the senbon from Naruto's nose.

Naruto shrieked like a steam kettle and passed out. His clones disappeared, Hinata collapsed, and there was a startled cry from the woods behind them as Tazuna suddenly found himself alone.

Sasuke shrugged. "We got the kunoichi," he replied simply, gesturing at the bound hunter nin with his good hand.

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Hinata was the first to summon more of Naruto's chakra, thought it was anyone's guess whether she did it to heal him or get some relief from her own injuries.

"Glllllluuuhhhnnnnn!" Naruto moaned as he bolted upright, clutching at his head. "aaaaaaAAAAAAAhhhhh…. SHIT!"

"You okay, Naruto?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto moaned, massaging his temples. "Ow. Ow ow ow. I've got a pretty high pain tolerance, but that was a good solid nine on my 'painful things that have happened to me' scale. For the record, being carved up like a chicken by Ude was about a five. I'm good for around a six, but that needle in my nose… damn!" He coughed painfully. "Oh, and I seem to have senbon in my lungs again."

Hinata knelt by his side, pulling his jacket open and raising his mesh shirt. Fortunately, the needles were still sticking out of his flesh, so it was a fairly simple matter to grab the ends and pull them out. The holes quickly sealed behind them, leaving only streaks of blood to dry on his skin.

"So have we learned anything from this little adventure?" Kakashi asked with a cheerful smile.

"Yeah," Naruto replied, and coughed to get a little residual blood out of his lungs. "We should have killed the old man when we figured out he was lying. Fortunately, it's not too late to correct the mistake." One of his wakizashi appeared in his hand and he rose to his feet.

Tazuna stumbled backwards so fast he fell on his ass.

"Stop, Naruto," Kakashi ordered.

Naruto stopped his advance, slid the blade into its sheath under the back of his jacket, and turned away, noticing Hinata's bruises for the first time. He went to her side.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But we couldn't afford a higher rank mission!" Tazuna explained hastily, feeling the most cold sober he'd been in years. "Don't kill me! I have a daughter and a cute grandson who will be sad if I die!"

Kakashi crouched by his side, and Tazuna flinched.

"Don't worry, we're not gonna hurt you. We took the mission, we're gonna finish it. We'll defend you against all threats and help you get the bridge built. However…" He loomed over the man.

"We're not very happy with you."

Tazuna gulped.

Kakashi leaned back, giving the man some space.

"If you'd simply been honest with us up front, Konoha does offer discounts when the mission is just or otherwise worthy. But by lying to us, you created a situation where we went in with incorrect information. You could have gotten us killed, then died yourselves."

"Clients lie," Naruto said, and spit on the ground, away from Hinata.

"Yes they do. And that gets ninja killed more often than anything else. It's why I've been rather lax in keeping my team from terrorizing you. Frankly, you deserved it. Fortunately, Konoha isn't unaware of the situation in Wave, so you got a group capable of handling more than the average genin team." Kakashi saw Naruto perk up at that, and smiled as his students started filling in the gaps that had puzzled them.

"So… you're going to keep doing the mission?" Tazuna asked, having been prepared to beg for his life.

"Yep, right after you tell us everything you know about the man who's trying to kill you," Kakashi said with a sunny smile. "After all, Konoha is the village full of nice ninja."

"We are?" Sasuke stage whispered to Naruto.

"No, you're an asshole. We covered this already," Naruto replied.

Sasuke looked offended. "Well, you're an asshole, too! You're so much of an asshole that the village got nicer just because you left!"

"Because _we_ left, Sasuke. Because we left."

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"What the hell are you gonna do with Zabuza's shattered sword, anyway?" Naruto asked. Hinata had gathered up all the broken blade pieces, and the handle that hit her, and asked Naruto to seal them into a scroll for easy carrying. He rather wished that their captive had been so easy to deal with. Or at least had noticeable breasts. They had removed the mask to discover that the hunter nin was a girl, with rather classically beautiful features, but Sasuke refused to carry her on grounds that she wasn't very attractive, or something. Or maybe his arm just hurt. Either way, it was up to Naruto to carry the kunoichi around.

As Kakashi had remarked, "With great strength comes great burdens people place on you."

Hinata shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it'll be worth something to Zabuza. Or maybe I'll just hang the pieces on my wall. Father never hung my drawings on the refrigerator, but surely a big shattered sword is worth some kind of note."

"That was a bad ass strike, by the way. I'm just irritated that I kinda missed it. All my clone memories are kinda jumbled since I got them when I passed out." He paused. "I'm not entirely happy about the risks you took, though."

Hinata shrugged again. "I'll be fine. It's just bruises."

"Yeah, but…" Naruto sighed. "I'm just glad I don't have a very clear memory of it. I think my clones about had a heart attack when the kawarimi failed. We're in the big leagues now, and frankly I'm worried. Tell you what. The next time we fight someone that strong, plan D is the new plan A."

"Nice," Sasuke said approvingly.

"What's plan A now?" Tazuna asked. "It doesn't involve putting bombs in my shirt again, does it?" He'd been rather miffed when he found out.

"No, no, of course not," Naruto replied smoothly.

Tazuna glanced at him sideways.

"Basically, I start making shadow clones _and I never stop_," Naruto explained.

"That's gonna be hell on your mind," Sasuke noted.

Naruto shrugged. "Yeah, you can take turns spoon feeding my drooling idiot body after we either get away or I kill our enemies. The important thing is that we live long enough to be ABLE to buy the strained beets."

"Far be it for me, as your teacher, to point out the mistakes you keep repeating…" Kakashi began with a cheerfully ironic tone.

"Yes oh wise and powerful Sensei?" Naruto asked. "That's not sarcasm, by the way."

"Well, you'd think you'd have learned something about not exclusively relying on your body's ability to heal damage when a single senbon dropped you like a harmless rabbit. Perhaps… Well, never mind. You're not interested. You already have a plan." Kakashi started whistling nonchalantly.

"Well, there's my house," Tazuna said, interrupting. "Please, I know I've earned no favors, but could you be a little nicer to my family? They haven't done anything to you." His normally gruff voice was the closest to a plead they'd ever heard, even more than when he feared for his life.

Kakashi grabbed Hinata and Sasuke's shoulders, trapping Naruto in the middle. Even with Haku over his shoulder, Kakashi was taller than all of them. "Oh, don't worry, Tazuna-san. We'll be the very model of professionalism."

Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata all exchanged glances. This clearly wasn't over.

Just as Tazuna opened the door to his house, he was almost ran into by a small child of maybe six or seven.

"Wha- Grandpa!" the kid shouted. "You're back!"

"Hey, Inari-chan!" Tazuna said, real cheer in his voice. "Hey, everyone, this is my cute grandson, Inari."

"Father? Father, you're home?!" came a voice from further inside. A rather pretty woman came rushing to the door.

"Oh, and this is my lovely daughter, Tsunami-chan. Everyone, meet the ninja's I hired from Konoha to protect us." He motioned towards the Leaf ninja.

Naruto's eyes narrowed at how Tazuna had sweepingly included his family in the protection he'd purchased, but didn't say anything about it. Instead, he anchored himself to the ground with chakra, slung the unconscious kunoichi off his shoulder, and casually hefted her into the air with one hand on her ankle to gesture expansively, drawing everyone's eye. She was bound head to toe in wire, so she didn't flop much.

"Oh, and don't forget, this is one of the ninja Gatou hired to kill you," Naruto said dismissively, inwardly chuckling at how the kid hid behind his mother. "Do you have a shed or something out of the way we can stick this kunoichi in? Preferably far enough away that…" He hesitated, wondering how much would be okay to say in front of the civilians they weren't supposed to mess with. "You know, if we get loud, you can't hear it?" he finished vaguely.

Tazuna looked green, while his daughter and grandson just looked shocked. Tazuna had a pretty good idea of what was gonna happen to the kunoichi, and while he didn't exactly feel like defending someone who wanted to kill him, he didn't want to think too much about it either. Inari ran back into the house.

"Well…" Tsunami began, and told them where to find a shed that she thought might be suitable, though it didn't have a lock on the door. She was relieved when the blond boy assured her it wouldn't be a problem, then casually made more of himself (!) and sent them off with the captive ninja.

"And if I could trouble you for a bed," their leader, the rather handsome masked ninja with white hair asked. "I'm Hatake Kakashi, and these are my students."

They introduced themselves with bows.

Still feeling as if everything was vaguely surreal, Tsunami fell back on ingrained politeness and quickly set up some beds in the spare room, rolling out mats on the floor.

Astonishingly, the older man immediately lay down on one with a restrained sigh.

"Alright, team. I'm low on chakra because I used the sharingan so much, so I'll probably sleep for a day or so straight. Just guard in shifts until I wake up, and only use your clones for recon. We've got a lot of stuff to do. Have Hinata check periodically for intruders, regardless of whose watch it is, remember that Zabuza is a master of stealth. No one leaves, no one gets in."

"Yes, Sensei!" they chorused obediently.

"And if any of you mess with me while I'm asleep, I'll cut your balls off, kay?" He gave them a bright smile, then flopped down on the mat and pulled the blanket over himself.

"What about Hinata?" Naruto couldn't help but ask.

"She values yours, so they're the ones at stake. So you have a double interest in making sure everyone behaves. No talk sleep now." Kakashi's breath fell into the light, steady rhythm of sleep almost instantly.

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Authors Lie: Merry Christmas! A little short, but between the Christmas fic (if you don't have me on author alert, I posted A Very Team Lie Christmas as a separate story) and this, I barely had time to get them both finished in time for Christmas. Yes, Zabuza is PISSED about his sword, and PISSED about Haku, but battle is not the time for unhelpful emotions and he needed to leave then before they killed him. And I didn't have time to focus on him and still get this out today. So, more on that next time!

Reviews are all I want for Christmas!


	8. When Your Enemy Throws Nails

"Ano… Ninja-san?" Tsunami asked hesitantly.

"Just call me Naruto, after all, we're just the hired help," Naruto replied, trying to sound as friendly as possible given his mind was whirling with the problems of having an A rank badass out for blood.

"…Naruto-san, would you or your friends like something to eat?" she asked. "I have rice, fish, wheat flour…?"

Naruto glanced at Hinata, then at Sasuke. Something unspoken passed between them, almost like a psychic communication, though really it was just subtle sign language. The really disconcerting thing was how the girl with the band over her eyes seemed able to see everything around her with no trouble. Tsunami assumed she was blind, but did blind people become ninja? Except for the stories, she really knew nothing about them.

"Tsunami-san, I would very much appreciate a meal, but I'm afraid I have first watch," Sasuke said, bowing again politely. "I have to scout the perimeter now, but if I could trouble you to hold something for me?"

"Ah, yes," Tsunami replied, unsure what that meant.

"Hinata and I would love something, though. Busy day, you know," Naruto said with a chuckle and a scratch of the back of his head.

"We are honored that you would take us into your home," Hinata added, drawing upon her rarely used training to find the appropriate words. She'd really become quite rude since she'd became a ninja in her own right. "Whatever will trouble you the least will be fine."

Throughout the preparation of the meal, Hinata kept an eye on their hostess, making sure she didn't slip any unusual ingredients into their food, though of course, if she had been replaced or compromised by an enemy, the appropriate thing to do would have been to poison the ingredients before they even arrived.

That was where Naruto came in, using his superior sense of smell and his knowledge of poisons to search for anything Hinata might have missed, and then eating first, again trusting in his inhuman healing to give them the warning they needed.

Everything seemed on the up and up, though. Tsunami was polite, though she clearly felt out of place. Naruto and Hinata tried to put her at her ease with small talk, Naruto directing the conversation briefly to family, then to the home, the neighborhood, and the neighbors. As a way of getting the woman to open up, Naruto admitted that he was an orphan, and Hinata briefly covered the fact that she lived with her father and extended family, though her mother had died years ago, though she left out the bit about the prestigious clan.

"And your eyes?" Tsunami asked. "Forgive me, Hinata-san, but are you blind?" she asked as they sat around the table, several empty bowls stacked neatly in front of each of the ninja.

"No, Tsunami-san. I wear my hitai-ate over my eyes because they have an unusual appearance that tends to shock people. Better to be thought blind than scare people."

"Oh, that's terrible," Tsunami said, easily feeling sorry for the girl. "But isn't that inconvenient, not being able to see when you're in public?"

"I can see through solid materials, it doesn't inconvenience me."

…and just when she was starting to see them as nice, if slightly strange children, they were right back to completely bizarre strangers.

"Yeah, Hinata-chan is awesome," Naruto said cheerfully, upping the charm as he put his arm around her and hugged her close. "It doesn't matter how good they are, Hinata will see anyone who tries to sneak up." He grinned. "And she's cute, too."

Hinata playfully pushed on Naruto's chest, but didn't pull away.

Tsunami couldn't help but grin. "Oh, are you two dating in addition to being teammates?"

"Yep," Naruto said proudly, even as Hinata smiled. "Have been since before we graduated, in a way. I don't know how she puts up with my stupidity, but she does."

Tsunami giggled, smiling at them fondly. Just the idea of two young people in love, even if they were ninja, gave them the human touch that really got her to let her guard down. "Every young man could use a girl to keep him in line now and then," she agreed.

"Yes, that's actually my job," Hinata admitted frankly and honestly.

Naruto laughed. "Even Sasuke, who's about as prickly as a cactus, listens to Hinata when she decides to speak up. Of course, it's always a good idea to listen to a girl who can kill with a single finger… whoops."

Tsunami was looking a little shocked.

Hinata smacked Naruto over the head. "Naruto, you dummy, you shocked her." She immediately separated herself from him and bowed deeply. "I apologize, Tsunami-san. We spend so much time in the ninja village we tend to get casual about these things."

"That's… quite alright," she said. "I guess I should clean the dishes now…"

"Oh, we'll help you carry them to the kitchen," Hinata said quickly. "It's the least Naruto can do, right?" She nudged him.

"Right. Sorry, Tsunami-san." He bowed, then got up and started gathering bowls in his arms.

"No, no, I should be the one who's sorry," she hastily apologized. "After all, Father wouldn't have made it home alive if it wasn't for you. It's just that I have a hard time remembering that such young people are actually ninjas. Aren't you… young for such a violent life?"

Naruto shrugged. "Not really, actually, we're running a little late. Most of the really good shinobi I know made jounin, our highest rank, before they got to our age. We graduated on a newer schedule. Even though we could have become full ninja years ago, they don't let anyone do that anymore because the stress of being active duty is hard on an eight year old. So we actually got to take it easy."

"Oh my. Still, you seem awfully young. I don't doubt your abilities, but when Father said he was hiring ninja, I honestly expected someone more like your Sensei." Together, they carried the dishes to the kitchen.

"We live fast," Naruto admitted with a shrug.

Hinata tapped his arm lightly, then turned to Tsunami. "Excuse me, Tsunami-san, but I believe your son Inari is sneaking out his window. I don't know if that is acceptable behavior or not, but I'm afraid we have to insist that everyone remain within the immediate area until our teacher wakes up."

Tsunami looked surprised, then angry, then exasperated. "That boy…" she said with a huff, and started for the door.

"I'll get him, Tsunami-san, and bring him right back." Naruto seemed to just disappear to the civilian woman.

"Oh, well, okay." Something occurred to her, and she giggled.

Hinata cocked her head slightly.

"Oh, I was just thinking, you're going to be quite frustrating to your children one day, Hinata-san. Inari already swears I have eyes in the back of my head, but I'm usually just guessing. You really can see him from another part of the house entirely." She seemed terribly amused by the idea.

Hinata smiled in return.

Naruto suddenly reappeared with a struggling child under his arm. Inari kicked and flailed, and even tried to bite, but Naruto's arms were like steel.

"Sorry, kid," he offered, "But you've gotta hang around the house for a while so the big bad enemy ninjas don't get you."

"What does it matter?" he spat, kicking until he was finally sat down on his feet. "You're all just gonna die anyway!"

"Um, no." Naruto raised one eyebrow at the kid.

"Inari! Be polite!" Tsunami snapped.

"Uh huh! There's no way you can go against Gatou," Inari insisted. "He's got men all over the place, and he's really powerful. You're all just gonna die."

"We already beat the men Gatou sent," Naruto said dismissively, though privately he wasn't nearly as confident as he appeared, he knew you didn't let the client know that. "If he sends more, we'll take care of them too."

Inari scoffed. "What do you think you are, a hero? There are no heroes! If you don't want to die, you should just leave."

Naruto, amazingly, started laughing. And laughing. Hinata joined in the giggles as well.

"Hey, I scouted the area… what's funny?" Sasuke asked as he returned.

"Oh! Oh oh oh! You gotta hear this one, Sasuke!" Naruto said between chuckles. "You'll get a kick out of it!"

"Do tell," Sasuke replied, interested despite himself.

"This kid thinks we're heroes, but that there is no such thing as heroes, so we're all gonna die! Wah hah hah!"

Sasuke cracked up. "Oh wow, really? That's awesome! Say it again, kid, I missed it!"

Inari's face scrunched up as they made fun of him. "Well it's true! If you try to fight Gatou you're just gonna die, even if you are a hero!"

"Bwahahahah! It's even more hilarious when he says it! Hahahah!" Sasuke was cracking up, Hinata was completely failing to keep her amusement quiet, and Naruto was nearly bent over laughing.

"Oh, don't make fun of him, please?" Tsunami pleaded. "He's just a child, and he's had a hard time."

Hinata reached under her forehead protector to presumably wipe her eyes. "Oh, no, Tsunami-san. We're not making fun of him, it's just terribly funny the way he made one wrong assumption."

Inari felt that he was about to cry, so he turned to run from the kitchen.

Naruto snagged his arm before he made it even one step. Wiping his tears of laughter away, Naruto straightened and hoisted Inari into the air. "Come on, kid, we're gonna set a few things straight so you can sleep better at night."

"You're not gonna hurt him, are you?" Tsunami asked fearfully, wanting to take her son back, but suddenly the blond boy, even though he was smaller than her, seemed impossibly dangerous.

"Oh, no, Tsunami-san. We're here to protect you. But, with your permission, we'd like to show Inari just why you're all as safe as you can possibly be, no matter how strong Gatou is. Just a little demonstration of the ninja arts, if you will." He grinned at her.

The teeth were a little frightening.

"Oh, well, okay…" she said hesitantly.

"Great! Come on, kid!"

"I don't want t-"

They disappeared.

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"Toooooooo!" Inari screamed as they suddenly appeared outside, beside one of the family storage sheds his grandfather kept tools in. Sasuke and Hinata appeared right beside them, Sasuke still chuckling lightly.

Waving at a couple of hidden clones, Naruto opened the door to the shed and waved his hand at two more clones that had been guarding their captive, who was laying on the floor, still unconscious.

Naruto put Inari on his feet as Sasuke closed the door and leaned against it, his arms crossed.

"See this girl, Inari-kun?" Naruto asked. "She was hired by Gatou to kill your grandfather, and maybe you and your mom, too. Do you hate this girl, Inari?"

"Yeah!" he replied loudly. "But even if you beat one, more will come."

"Ignore that for a minute, okay? Now, Inari, what would you like to do to this ninja that wanted to kill your grandfather?"

"Beat him up!" Inari replied without hesitation. In his limited experience, he just couldn't think of a dangerous enemy as a girl.

"Okay," Naruto replied. He turned, crouched down, and punched the unconscious ninja in the gut, getting a groan even though he never woke up. Then he hit him again, and again, and again.

Inari stared in shock for several moments as Naruto punched the captive. "Y-you can't do that!" he protested.

"Oh? Why not?" Naruto asked. "I thought I was doing it just fine."

Sasuke snorted. "Kinda lame if you ask me. You kept pulling your punches, and what was up with that bent wrist?"

"Shut up, Sasuke," Naruto snapped. "Anyway, kid, the point is, we beat this ninja in open battle to save your grandpa. And now, she's our captive. And now, we can do whatever we want to her. You can, too." He stood and kicked Haku in the side, sliding the body across the floor.

"But she's already tied up! She can't fight back!" Inari protested, getting the gender right according to how Naruto had been saying it. "That's not fair!"

"No, it's not," Naruto agreed cheerfully. "And good guys play fair, right?" He kicked Haku again. "Come on, it's fun. Kicking an enemy when she's down is one of life's little pleasures." He kicked Haku again.

"But that's just mean!" Inari protested again.

"So? Sure you don't want to give it a shot?" Naruto asked.

Inari frantically shook his head.

"Oh, well. It's only the first day, we have time. But yeah, you're right, this serves no purpose. She's unconscious, she can't even feel it. If you want to really inflict some pain, you gotta wake 'em up first."

There was a dusty chair in the corner, and a work bench along one wall, mostly cluttered with tools and bits of wood. Tazuna might have been a good engineer, but years of drinking had made him all too casual about his tools and work space. Naruto cleared a space on the bench with a sweep of his hand, set up the chair, and put Haku in it.

It actually took several minutes of wire work to get the ninja tied to the chair, which, although reasonably sturdy, couldn't hope to hold a shinobi on its own. They relied mostly on Hinata's ability to paralyze muscle groups and nerve fibers with juken strikes to keep Haku captive. Each foot was tied to a separate chair leg, and Naruto also adjusted the wires so individual arms could be freed at any given time.

Finally satisfied, he motioned to Hinata to wake Haku up.

Hinata's fingers danced over tenketsu and acupressure points, removing just enough of the chakra blocks to allow for consciousness, then massaging the head through the long, silky hair to bring him back to full wakefulness.

Haku blinked and started, making the chair creak a little, looking around wildly. He paled as he saw that he was surrounded by enemies and in a small, dimly lit room.

Naruto grinned at him. "Well hello there. I don't believe we've been properly introduced. What's your name little missing nin?"

"Haku. I am a hunter-nin of Kirigakure, sent here to attempt to apprehend the missing ninja Momichi Zabuza. I am no match for Zabuza on my own, so I was watching the fight in hopes that you would wound or kill him that I could complete my mission. I ask that you treat me in accordance with the treaty between our villages." It was very smooth, very rote.

Naruto tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Hmmmm nah. Try again."

Haku gulped.

"My name is Haku. I am a hunter-nin of Kirigakure, sent here to attempt to apprehend the missing ninja Momichi Zabuza. I am no match for Zabuza on my own, so I was watching the fight in hopes that you would wound or kill him that I could complete my mission. I ask that you treat me in accordance with the treaty between our villages."

"A little better, I think. Hinata?" he asked, glancing at her.

"Pretty good. Needs more work on controlling eye movements."

Naruto leaned towards Inari and whispered theatrically. "It's actually not true, you know. You can lie with the eyes." He paused. "Well, some people. Clearly not Haku, here." He straightened. "Well, Haku. It's a good story. You've got the dress right, the mask, even plausibility… But Zabuza tried to rescue you before Kakashi-sensei killed him. So since we don't have the 'demon'" he said, making quote marks with his fingers, "of the Mist to question, guess who gets to answer our questions about Gatou's organization?" He smiled warmly.

Haku's heart lurched at the news of Zabuza's death, but he quickly reminded himself that it was probably just an interrogation ploy.

Probably.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," he said, blinking back tears. "I am a hunter-nin of Kirigakure, sent here to attempt to apprehend the missing ninja Momichi Zabuza. I have no idea why he would want to capture me, other than to get information about the other hunter teams after him."

"Ah, the old when in doubt, deny strategy. You're new at this game, aren't you," Naruto asked with pity in his voice. "Yeah, I've been in that chair before, several times, actually. You never think it's gonna happen to you, and then it nails you out of the blue. Sucks, huh? I still have nightmares."

Haku didn't say anything.

"So, anyway, we've got some-"

"Why did you try to kill my grandpa?!" Inari suddenly cried. "Why?!" Tears were streaming down his face.

"I did not attempt to kill your grandfather. I was sent here to capture the man who was," Haku insisted.

"Lies," Naruto commented. He pulled a hammer off the bench and handed it to Inari. "Here, kid, time to teach you a ninja technique. This is the Hammer of Truth. One of the most ancient and mysterious ninja ways that you can ever learn is that if you hit someone with the Hammer of Truth enough, they'll stop lying and start answering your questions. Why don't you give it a shot?"

Inari gripped the handle with his small fingers so hard his knuckles turned white. He looked at the hammer. He looked at Haku.

Naruto stepped around to the other side of the chair to give him room to swing.

"I'm not lying. I was not going to kill your grandfather," Haku said quietly, his eyes never leaving the small child with the hammer.

Above him, Naruto made an elaborate pantomime. "He's lying," he mouthed silently, making overly enthusiastic negative motions that nearly had Sasuke laugh himself to death.

Inari's hands started trembling.

"You tried to kill my grandpa. People like you killed my father," he whispered.

"I don't know anything about your father," Haku said, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice.

"SHUT UP!" Inari screamed, and swung the hammer with all his might. The round head caught Haku in the upper chest, leaving a circular bruise and making Haku grunt. "Shut up shut up shut up!" Inari screamed, swinging the hammer again and again.

Of course, he was just a kid, and a civilian one to boot. What would have been lethal coming from Naruto or one of the others was merely a light bruise from Inari, even with the hammer. Still, by the time Inari was gasping for breath and the hammer had fallen to his feet, Haku was crying.

Not so much from the pain, which was negligible, but from the rage and frustration the young boy had poured out. Haku was a ninja, true, but he was also sensitive to other's pain, and Inari was one hurting kid.

Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke were all clapping. Naruto even whistled. "That's how you do it, kid! Go Inari!"

"I wasn't there to kill anyone," Haku insisted quietly.

Naruto shook his head. "You know, I don't think you're really paying attention here. This kid's whole family is in danger because of you and your employers. You have no idea how far we'll go to protect them." He reached down and untied some of the wire binding Haku's arms to his torso, freeing Haku's left hand and arm.

Haku struggled, but without his chakra, Naruto's grip was like iron. Soon his hand was spread out flat on the bench and held there by Naruto's hand on his wrist.

"Hey, hand me that hammer, will you kid?" Naruto asked.

Haku flinched and tried to pull away, scooting the chair slightly, but Naruto stopped it with a hand on the back.

Inari was breathing heavily and shallowly, his eyes dilated extremely wide as he handed over the hammer, fearing and yet excited by what was about to happen.

Naruto hefted the hammer several times, spinning it through his fingers to get the feel for it. "You know, that senbon you hit me in the nose with really hurt."

"I am a hunter-nin of Kirigakure, and I ask that you treat me in accordance with our treaty," Haku repeated, not quite begging.

"Sure," Naruto agreed easily. "We follow the treaty. But you know… the treaty doesn't cover missing nin. I guess you're shit out of luck, being one and all, huh?" He raised the hammer-

-and sat it down on the bench.

"Bah, field expedient stuff always irritated me. I've still got a set of the real tools from my days in Torture and Interrogation. Sasuke? Will you sent a clone to get my bag?" He winked at Sasuke.

Sasuke grunted. "And miss this? Nah. Use the Hammer of Truth on her. I love that thing."

"Lazy bastard. Well, if there's no other choice…" He picked the hammer up again.

Haku whimpered. "I don't know anything you're asking about," he insisted.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked. "Allow me." She stepped forward.

"Oh shit, Haku, you're in trouble now," Sasuke commented from the door. "Hinata scares even me a little."

Haku flinched when she got close, but all she did was put her left hand over Haku's, pressing it down flat on the bench, fingers spread.

Then she whipped out a kunai, the darkened steel blade blurring to appear in front of Haku's eyes.

"Please, don't do this," Haku whispered, then jumped as the tip of the kunai slammed into the workbench, right between their spread thumb and forefinger.

And then Hinata lifted it, and stabbed again between her index and middle finger, then back between thumb and index. Then between middle and ring fingers, back to the starting point, then between ring and pinky. Then she did it backwards.

Faster.

Haku wiggled his fingers a little, trying to keep them perfectly covered by Hinata's own fingers as she played five finger fillet, getting faster and faster.

Hinata's face turned, the dull, scratched metal of her hitai-ate right in front of Haku's eyes. Naruto leaned over and slid the headband up onto Hinata's forehead, revealing in close detail the black abyssal voids where most people had eyes. Haku screamed a little, then.

And Hinata wasn't even looking, the kunai blurring with speed as she danced the tip back and forth between their spread fingers.

Haku squirmed, knowing she was going to fail any moment, anticipating the sharp pain to come.

Still Hinata got faster, leaning in to Haku's face so close her breath tickled the fine hairs of Haku's nose, her eyes like void.

And suddenly Hinata slammed the kunai through the back of her own hand, through her palm and into Haku's hand beneath it, pinning both their hands to the wooden bench.

Haku screamed then, in shock and pain and fear, trying to jerk his hand back, but Naruto's grip was too strong and he was still pinned by the kunai through Hinata's own hand. Their mingled blood pooled and flowed, soaking into the thirsty, unfinished wood of the bench.

"Do I have your attention now?!" Hinata screamed into Haku's face. "Your master is dead! Tell us everything about Gatou!"

Haku cried and blubbered into incoherency, even as Hinata yanked out the kunai and Naruto tied Haku's arm back to the chair.

Naruto silently gestured with his head, and Hinata slapped a juken strike to Haku's head. His cries cut off abruptly.

She turned to Inari, whose eyes were about as big as dinner plates.

He backed away and gaped like a fish as she crouched down, ignoring her bleeding hand.

"Would good guy heroes torture someone for information?" she asked calmly, her black eyes drawing his own gaze.

Wordlessly, he shook his head.

"That's right, kid," Naruto said cheerfully. "You see, you made an assumption which just isn't right. We're not the heroes." He grinned and let red demonic chakra flicker around him.

"We're the bad guys."

Inari worked his mouth in shock, but no sound came out.

"So, really, you shouldn't be worried," Sasuke added from behind him. "Gatou is fucked. Your family is gonna be just fine. We're gonna kill everyone who comes after you."

Naruto patted Inari on the shoulder.

He didn't flinch, much.

"Yep. You're gonna be just fine. See, you're right. There's a lot of bad guys out there. People with money and power that generally crush people like your family underfoot. What you've got to do is find an even bigger monster. That's us. Our job is being worse than the other monsters, and we're good at it. That's why your grandfather is paying us money, though he did get kinda cheap." He paused. "Of course, the most cost effective way to deal with things is to learn to be a monster yourself…"

Inari cocked his head, his fear momentarily pushed aside. "How do you learn to be a monster?" he asked.

Naruto grinned. "Now that, my boy, is a very good question. First you start by working someone over with a hammer…"

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"Zabuza-sama?" Gouzu asked hesitantly. Their master was bleeding, dirty, and without both his customary giant sword and Haku.

His glare was positively murderous, too.

Gouzu and Meizu both flinched backwards. Fortunately, Zabuza wasn't the type to kill someone on his side merely because he was pissed.

"The bridge builder lives. Haku is captive. The Konoha ninja won the day," he growled, his eyes blazing. Although perfectly capable of suppressing unhelpful emotions in battle, where it had been more important that he escape to plan his revenge than rage about Haku or his broken sword, it didn't mean he didn't have them.

And Zabuza was pissed. His best tools were both broken or stolen by the Leaf ninja.

Blood would flow.

"Both of you, go. Get Hoozuki, Ryota, Jian Guo, and Yuuna," he said, pointing at Gouzu. "Get Surume and Kani," he ordered, pointing at Meizu. "I don't care if they're busy, I don't care what missions it's going to compromise. I want them as soon as possible. We'll meet at that warehouse of Gatou's where I broke that guy's leg that time. Even if they break Haku, they won't get that site."

"Okay, Boss," Meizu replied quickly. "Do you, uh, need anything before we go? You look pretty beat up."

Zabuza growled softly to himself, then shook his head. "No. I will sleep, then I'll be gone, perhaps for a week, maybe more. I'm going to cash in an old favor even if it kills him."

"Who's that, Zabuza-sama?" Gouzu asked.

"Raiga. His little shoulder watcher will be the perfect counter to that Hyuga bitch." Zabuza's eyes narrowed. "It'll even be worth sharing Kakashi's death with him."

"That's what I'm talking about, Boss!" Meizu agreed. "We'll show those damned Leaf ninja what Mist is all about." Giving his master a salute, he disappeared out the door, his brother right behind him, though going the opposite direction.

Despite Zabuza's trouble and the loss of Haku, who was actually a pretty decent companion, Meizu was glad. He knew those Leaf ninja were more powerful than Zabuza was giving them credit. They should have done this to start with.

Of course, he knew better than to say it in Zabuza's presence, but even a mental 'I told you so' is pretty satisfying.

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Authors Lie: You know, when I started AMNQ, I lost some readers who were sad to see People Lie go. (I AM still going to go back and work on PL some more, I just don't know when.) And some people were quite disappointed by the idea of basically canon events and quit reading. Such is their perogative. However, if you know one of those people, do me a favor and hit them with the Hammer of Truth, okay?

Oh, and people who read and don't review make little Inari cry. You wouldn't want to be tied up in a chair in front of a crying Inari wielding a hammer, would you?


	9. What Use Lies

Naruto looked at Hinata and Sasuke.

Hinata looked at Naruto and Sasuke.

Sasuke stared back as they both turned to look at him. He frowned.

Naruto shrugged helplessly.

"Oh, come on…" Sasuke grumbled.

"Look at it this way. She can't glomp you like Ino always does," Naruto reminded him.

"Now that you've made me realize that an enemy kunoichi who's tried to kill me is preferably over Ino as company, when we get back to Konoha, remind me to do something horrible to her."

"We might as well feed her and let her use a bathroom. She's already broke once, the best way to handle this will be to give her just a little bit of awake time for it to sink in, then another good shock and she should spill her guts," Naruto explained.

"Now?" Sasuke asked.

"Nah, but before the night is over," Naruto replied.

"Fine, then I'm gonna grab something to eat. Torture always makes me hungry."

Naruto turned to the side to where Inari was standing with a very quiet, solemn look on his face.

"How about it, kid? You ate yet?"

Inari shook his head.

"Then go with Sasuke, your mom will feed you. But behave, okay? Sasuke hates kids," Naruto said cheerfully.

"And adults. Animals. Plants. Inanimate objects. Theories. Concepts. Natural phenomenon," Hinata started listing in a quietly amused monotone, tugging lightly on the makeshift bandage that covered the hole in her hand.

Sasuke sneered back. "Did you even see the way he went at her with that hammer? The kid's all right with me. But don't make me change my mind." He lead Inari off to get supper.

"Huh. I think Inari actually touched Sasuke's heart a little," Naruto commented. "But you, damn, Hinata, you scared the hell out of _me_ with that kunai trick. I know you know your body better than anyone, but it's not gonna mess with you is it?"

"No. No large vessels or tendons were cut."

"Well, good, but, while that was impressive as hell, there are easier ways to scare the shit out of someone, okay? We've got time at the moment, lets save the really rough stuff for later." He gave her a little smile.

"Okay." She seemed strangely subdued after the intensity of the performance with Haku.

"Alright. We'll question the kunoichi more tomorrow. I got an idea for that you're probably gonna like, but I'm gonna work on it a little while I finish a few preparations. You should probably take a nap between checks, and don't waste too much chakra. I figured we're safe from immediate assault, this definitely looks like its gonna be more of a longer term siege."

"Haku is a boy," Hinata announced quietly. "He moves and talks as a girl very convincingly."

"Haku is a huh?" Naruto said, still smiling. He blinked. "Oh. Ohhhh. Heh, that's pretty funny. So you didn't tell us to let us go along with the gender deception? Or as part of a joke setup?"

"Something else, actually," Hinata admitted. "I had not planned on informing you unless it seemed likely to be relevant, but I don't like keeping information from you. I wish to observe Sasuke's reaction."

"To finding out he was wrong about Haku being a girl?" Naruto asked. "A little embarrassment, I guess…"

"I will need to prod him into an appropriate frame of mind."

Naruto grinned. "Oh, maybe get him to do a little of the old 'seduce the enemy' routine and then let him find out she's a he? That could be hilarious."

Hinata nodded slightly. "Something like that."

Naruto shrugged. "Sounds fine, a little fun, especially if the civilians hear the story. Make a nice little thing to take their minds off the homicidal ninja out for their blood. But, standard rules, you know. Don't let it compromise the mission."

"It shouldn't," she replied in agreement.

"Alright. Well, I'm gonna sit on the roof and think and make clones for most of the night. Wanna sit up there with me? I'll make sure you don't roll off when you're napping."

Hinata smiled. "That sounds nice."

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"Come on, Sasuke. I'll wake her up and help you watch her in the outhouse," Hinata announced when she came up on him. He'd eaten his own meal and had some time to digest and prowl around a little more.

"Yeah, alright, Tsunami-san has some rice for her. Probably not poisoned." He shrugged as if the civilian woman's desire to kill the enemy kunoichi didn't really concern him one way or the other.

"Bathroom first, I think. She's been out for almost a full day. Any more and you're gonna have to clean her up."

Sasuke looked affronted. "Me? Oh I think not. Girl, you're the girl on the team, your problem."

"What, are you afraid of the implications?"

"That I'll get pee all over my hands? I don't have to be afraid of it to not want it to happen."

"I meant the implication that you would take advantage of the naked girl," Hinata pressed.

Sasuke raised one eyebrow. "Um, no."

"We wouldn't judge."

Sasuke gave her the strangest look. "How about we just forget that you're borderline insane for the rest of tonight and go feed the captive?"

"Okay."

Sasuke got the rice from the kitchen and waited patiently, ready to assist if necessary, as Hinata woke up Haku and escorted her to a small outhouse Tazuna had near the shop, since apparently he disliked going all the way back inside when he needed a toilet. Hinata might have been weird, even as kunoichi went, but at least she was agreeable. And competent.

Their captive was startled when Hinata woke her, and struggled briefly until she remembered where she was. After that she settled down and was nicely docile. Of course, Hinata had left the chakra coils blocked, and one hand was left tied directly to her neck with that arm paralyzed to boot. It was the hand Hinata had driven a kunai through that she left free, tightly wrapped in a thin bandage, because it would be slightly less dexterous than the other. They didn't hobble her, though. Wire around mobile limbs was a potential weapon. The kunoichi was no more dangerous than a highly trained civilian with a knife.

Which, admittedly, was still dangerous enough, but Hinata was there to keep an eye on things during the brief moment of 'privacy' they allowed her in the toilet. Which wasn't much, since they left the door open. Sasuke turned his back. Yeah, just no.

Definitely not a scene he wanted to remember for the rest of his life.

He took over as primary guard after that, and practically ran Hinata off with a curt comment of 'If I can't handle someone with no chakra and one paralyzed arm she deserves to escape and get caught by Naruto's clones in the woods, and I don't think she wants that."

He tied her back to the chair himself, but left her working hand free. Instead, he handed her chopsticks, and gestured at the covered bowl of rice on the bench.

"Eat. I ain't feeding you myself." He settled back into a deceptively casual stance, his sharingan spinning in anticipation of a fight.

"Thank you," Haku replied quietly, grabbing hunks of rice carefully with her bandaged hand and eating it slowly.

Sasuke grunted indifferently.

"Thank you… for letting me go to the toilet," Haku added after a moment.

Sasuke grunted again.

"I see. You're not going to talk to me now."

"I might, if you said something worth responding to," Sasuke replied. "Your words of thanks are so many lies. We killed Zabuza and took you prisoner. We've hurt you and we will hurt you more if we have to."

Haku paused, rice still on her chopsticks at the mention of Zabuza. Her hand trembled slightly.

"Oh, eat the damned rice," Sasuke snapped.

Obediently, Haku took the bite and reached for another.

After about half the bowl, Haku paused again.

"Yes, I suppose I should hate you," she said, almost thoughtfully.

"I find it helps," Sasuke admitted.

Haku couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "Hatred?"

"I'm very good at it," he said modestly.

"I… I see." Haku ate more. "But, for someone so taken by hatred, you've treated me better than I would expect from monsters."

Sasuke shrugged indifferently. "Naruto does these little human things on occasion."

"Oh, so you're saying he's the least monstrous of you?"

Sasuke couldn't help it. He burst into laughing again. "Hahahahahah no." He smirked down at Haku. "No, no I think you'll find that Naruto is the biggest monster of them all." He leaned closer to the kunoichi. "It's what makes his little human moments all the more frightening," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. "The biggest monster of them all… restrained only by a human."

"I see your hatred now," Haku whispered back, staring into his eyes.

Sasuke nodded in satisfaction. "Finish your rice. Questioning the questioner time is over."

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Naruto sat. And thought. And then he'd make a trio of clones, and send them off. Every now and then, one of his reconnaissance clones would dispel and send its knowledge back. And then he would have new thoughts, and the clones he made would have new missions.

Okay, so he'd gone down like a bitch when he got a senbon in his nose. That was fine. Hinata and Sasuke were better fighters anyway. Sure, he had the power, and he had enough of it to overwhelm most opponents, but he knew who had gotten the skill and the finesse on his team, and neither of those attributes had gone to him.

But now, now he was in his element. Leave nothing to chance. Every escape route opens up new escape routes and closes off the trail. Every path of advancement opened new paths and closed off no retreats. Using seed money out of his own pocket and a few tricks, he made a few sucker bets with locals to increase their resources. Of course, with the area being depressingly poor, his spoils weren't much, but rooms to rent were cheap, too. He got several. He also found a couple of abandoned houses that looked likely, and a few more that only had a few people in them. He had the clones watching those people to see if they had any close friends who would notice if someone, like, say, him, had to suddenly replace them for an extended period of time while they hid a family of bridge builders somewhere in the house.

Provisions in the various hidey holes were harder, naturally. Water was actually the hardest. Wave was poor, but it was also surrounded by the ocean, and fish were cheap. However, they were right on the damned ocean, which meant the ground water was contaminated basically everywhere. Actual fresh water wasn't exactly rare, but you mostly had to cart it around yourself.

Cheap, shitty booze was everywhere. God, some of it smelled like fish were a major source for fermentation. Never a big fan of especially harsh spirits, and not a drinker as a matter of age and principle, Naruto's clones were practically horrified by the olfactory assault. He got as much as he could stash, though. Alcohol had so many wonderful uses, from cleaning wounds to fueling fires.

Life was cheap in Wave, it seemed. He saw three minor robberies and a lot of rough looking, desperate men. Of course, he was deliberately looking in the seedier areas, but still.

He spent some of the cash and more of the booze setting up a sailor turned drifter in his favorite semi-abandoned house. An old woman, nearly deaf, still lived there, and she seemed positively glad to accept some coin in return for being blind as well. With a 'renter' to get the locals used to the idea of extra comings and goings, and a face to put with them, Naruto felt pretty confident in the house as a first stop bolt hole if things went bad at their current location.

Everything was done under henge, of course. Naruto certainly didn't want his real face shown around a place he intended as a hiding spot.

Of course, since he was doing everything with clones, that meant he had to stay awake the whole time. How very.

At one point, about three in the morning, he came to himself in a rush of chakra borne memories as the completion of some of the last of his immediate preparations was complete.

Hinata was laying on the roof beside him, her head in his lap, but he could tell that she wasn't sleeping, she was just laying there quietly.

"You know, I wonder if that's like, a career choice or something for civilian women?" he mused quietly.

Even without looking, he could actually feel Hinata's eyebrow raise at the lack of context.

"Well, you know, in all the stories, whenever someone has to hide in a town, there's always this little old lady who lives quietly by herself in a house large enough for boarders. And she's always like, blind, or deaf, or something, so that the people looking for a place to stay hidden can stay there and not worry about security. I always thought that sounded a little too convenient, but I totally found one tonight, and I've got it set up as a hiding place for our clients." He shook his head. "I was just thinking that maybe there's like a career day for it or something. A workshop for widows who need to pull in some extra money, and all they have to do is give up a major sense and run a bed and breakfast for people on the run."

"Maybe you're just over thinking it," Hinata mused quietly.

"Heh, yeah, probably," he admitted.

"Of course, maybe there's someone really clever out there who runs a secret spy network of honey trapped houses where they can monitor the activities of people who are hiding. Could be either one, really."

"…right." Naruto thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, that place just got moved to last on the list, and last on the list just got moved to first."

"What's it like?" she asked.

"Oh, it's lovely. I think it used to be a bakery that made ship rations, but it closed down at one point, and all the flour and stuff left over was eaten by maggots. Of course, then the maggots turned into flies, and that attracted spiders, and now you can't get anywhere in there without tearing through like five million spider webs. I call it the spider hole."

"Intriguing. Most people hate spiders."

"I know, right? No one would hide in a spider hole. I've got a few ideas that'll make it really secure. Of course, I hope the civilians don't freak out if we go there."

"A tunnel from an adjacent building?" Hinata asked. "To bypass the spider webs so they appear undisturbed, and then a hiding place in the only basement in the town, which appears to have been a place for storing smuggled goods. Nice." Hinata sounded impressed.

"Aww, you peeked," Naruto complained. "It's so hard to create a surprise for someone who can peek over your shoulder from two miles away."

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"Damn, Naruto, what the hell are you doing?" Sasuke asked in undiluted amazement as he landed lightly on the roof in one of the very few clear spaces still remaining.

"Practicing something," Naruto replied. "Which one do you think is best?"

"Uh, let me see…" Sasuke answered slowly, looking around the rooftop.

About 20 twitching bodies lay scattered across the roof, each one resembling Zabuza, but in various stages of horrific maiming. Most were missing arms and legs, with various levels of bandaging ranging from hasty to careful. Several moaned theatrically as he passed, displaying injuries such as a smashed jaw, missing tongue, or just an old fashioned gag. Towards one corner Naruto had clearly been playing with fire, as half a dozen Zabuzas had been burned over all or most of their bodies.

"The burned ones look great," Sasuke admitted. "Very realistic."

"Thanks. Took hours to get that look right. But it neatly solves pretty much all the injury issues. Blind, dumb, no sense of smell, and unable to even touch most things." Naruto looked proud of his accomplishment.

"So this is part of your plan to have better combat clones, right?" Sasuke asked. "You said you were trying to make them look hurt without being hurt."

"Yeah. Still haven't solved the one hit kill issue, though," Naruto admitted.

"Why not stick with earth clones? They take hits well," Sasuke countered, referring to a jutsu Hinata's eyes had stolen from a sealed library.

"The range sucks, I don't get the memories back, and you have to direct them more. They're not independent like shadow clones. Really, kage bunshin are the best overall, and the other types are more for specific circumstances."

Sasuke shrugged. "You're the clone guy."

"The henge is working really good, but I haven't gotten the smell right. I can't even get much of a smell at all past the most basic human ones, and only like one of them has a strong scent," he continued.

Sasuke shook his head sadly. "Tell me you haven't."

Naruto chuckled and scratched the back of his head.

"Oh, god. You have," Sasuke accused. "You've been making your clones fart all night, haven't you?"

"Hinata finally gave up and went inside about six AM," Naruto admitted sheepishly.

"Oh. So her love for you does have limits after all."

"Apparently."

Sasuke shook his head again. "Anyway. The guy up there with the major burns to his face and chest, and the missing leg and forearms, he's probably the best for what I think you're planning. What are you going to do for the smell?"

Naruto nodded. "I got a couple other clones gone after some pork. I'll burn it nicely and smear it all over the clone so he gets that nice drippy cracked cooked flesh look. Should be disturbing as hell."

"Are you sure it's even necessary? Haku is a talker, you know," he said, shifting his weight slightly.

"Yeah, she's a soft crack, but I don't feel like sorting through last ditch efforts to protect a few other comrades or something. We want the whole deal. Convincing her that it's well and truly hopeless should do that nicely. Hinata's got the sword pieces, so we're just gonna go in, ignore Haku, toss 'Zabuza' there in the corner, and leave Hinata to play with the pieces until Haku is begging to talk."

"Damn. That's nasty."

"That's torture and interrogation," Naruto said with a shrug. "Okay, I may not be able to beat you in a fight. Or even Hinata, really. None of us are great at being personable over the long term. We've got things to learn all over the place. But I was Ibiki's little apprentice for years. This? This I'm good at."

"But you want bigger things."

"Yeah, I think I do," Naruto replied quietly. "Though I don't know about the whole 'Kage' thing anymore. All my plans are in shambles. I'm not even sure where to being rebuilding them, or if I should take it as a blessing and just clean slate it all."

Sasuke grunted. Naruto waited in silence for several moments, the two of them staring at the morning coast atmosphere, until it became clear that Sasuke wasn't going to volunteer any insights as to his plans in the new world.

The horribly mangled Zabuza right beside Sasuke pooted.

Sasuke gave Naruto a disgusted look, then disappeared.

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"What's cooking?" Kakashi asked as he walked up to the small campfire in the woods. "Close mouthed prisoner? The tongs are gonna cool off by the time you carry them back."

"Oh, Sensei," Naruto said with a nod to their teacher. The three members of Team Lie were crouched around the small fire, watching him poke at several slices of fatty pork in a cookpan. "Just making some burnt human flesh goo to fool Haku. We're gonna do the big interrogation in a little while. Did you want to be there?"

Kakashi tilted his head slightly. "You're making a burned Zabuza?"

"Yep. Either medical assistance or a dignified death will be the bargaining chip. Be interesting to see which Haku goes for. Hinata has the sword pieces for extra authenticity." He nodded at the kunoichi, who nodded back in return. She would take them out of the storage scroll before she went in.

"We've all gotta look roughed up, though, like Zabuza tricked us and came back, only to get killed for real this time. I'm going to throw a couple of big jutsu just to add to the effect." He resumed tending to the pork, getting a nice runny fat grease as the pig skin started charring black and cracking. There was also a few ounces of blood in there which was boiling and turning gummy.

"I'm thinking we do it on the beach. Keeps the actual signature down and would make since from a Mist nin invasion standpoint," Sasuke said quietly.

"Sounds good. Sensei?" Naruto asked, glancing at the older man.

"Maa, you seem to have it well in hand." Kakashi shrugged.

Naruto turned back to Sasuke. "You want to do it or should I? You think the grand fireball is going to be a big enough fire chakra pulse to get through Haku's dulled senses?"

Sasuke snorted. "The way you do it?"

"Eh." Naruto briefly set the pan on the coals, made five quick clones, and resumed his artistic burning of flesh. The clones bounded off towards the ocean.

Moments later, there was a roar of flames and wind, with huge splashes of water. The commotion continued for nearly a full minute, then subsided abruptly.

"You ready, Hinata?" Naruto asked.

She nodded.

"Alright, hold on. We're both gonna need to be wet to make this work." He glanced at Kakashi and Sasuke. "I'll throw Zabuza in and Hinata will stay to keep an eye on things for a few hours. When we actually go to question, though, you'll need to be bandaged and stuff to make it look good."

It was the work of an instant to make the clone, but took several minutes to get the henge right and then apply the burned pork.

'Zabuza' had apparently been the victim of several sharp blades, cutting jutsu, and explosions, topped off with an enormous fire jutsu that had burned out his eyes and turned his face into blackened ruin. Even his tongue had been burned so badly speech was impossible, it being little more than a stub of red, cracked flesh writhing around in a mouth opened in a silent scream. Both arms were missing above the elbow, but bandaged as if they were a field expedient amputation, as was the right leg.

The injuries were bad, but almost over the top unrealistically terrible, except that all that and worse happened to ninja in combat. With the application of the fat grease and some flaking pork skin char, which gave everything a nicely moist look and a burned flesh smell, the only unrealistic part was that he was still alive. Judging by Zabuza's reputation and appearance, though, he was almost certainly one tough son of a bitch, so Haku should believe it.

After that, it was simply a matter of enough bandages to make it seem like they wouldn't mind Zabuza living, but not so many that his death wasn't a threat, either. They also bound him with wire, not that it seemed like he had a chance in hell of escaping or attacking anyway.

Hinata managed a scuffed look after a dip in the ocean by rolling in the sand and grass, so she was nicely dirty. Naruto, of course, went even farther with his disguise, doing much the same and then using a henge to give himself a nice bruise along the side of his face and a few blood spatters here and there. A few pricks with a senbon gave him the actual blood smell.

Hoisting the Zabuza clone over his shoulder, he lead the way to the shed where Haku waited, Hinata following along behind him, carrying a loose bundle of sword fragments.

Naruto kicked the door in theatrically, though not so hard it flew off the hinges.

Haku flinched, startled by the sudden entrance. His eyes got big, but of course he couldn't say anything because he was gagged.

"Tricky son of a bitch," Naruto announced ruefully. "But we got him this time." He carried Zabuza to one side and dumped him on the ground, behind where Haku could see.

Hinata made a show of scanning Haku, ensuring he hadn't loosened his bindings, then stepped in front of him to access the workbench and dumped the pile of broken sword pieces on it.

Haku's eyes went round as saucers as he got a very close look at what was unmistakably the handle and blade pieces of Kubikiri Hocho, which was a legendary blade in Kirigakure, and known throughout the elemental countries.

Zabuza groaned slightly as Naruto arranged him.

"I'm gonna go check on Sasuke and Sensei," Naruto told her. "See if they need any medical help. Keep an eye on Chuckles, here, okay? I do not want to see him pull another miraculous resurrection."

"Yes," Hinata agreed, with feeling.

Naruto walked back out, staggering a little as if from great weariness.

Haku starting going 'mmmmph' 'mmmph' in his gag at that point.

Hinata ignored him, except to drag him backwards to the other wall, so she had more unobstructed workbench room to work on the sword fragments.

Carefully, she laid out a long scroll, only just wider than the sword itself. Another scroll produced a brush and ink, and she set about carefully creating a storage seal at the end, for the biggest and most obvious piece, the long, heavy handle and base of the blade.

Haku found he had a fairly decent view of Zabuza if he twisted his head all the way to the right, and what he saw made his heart sink. His master, his one reason for living, was reduced to little more than a basketcase, the beautiful body he once loved turned into a ruin of blackened, cracked flesh and oozing wounds.

Hinata ignored his efforts to attract her attention as she set about puzzling the pieces of the blade back together. Most of them were big and easy, but some of the smaller ones that had come from the initial spider web of cracks where her hand had struck required a little more thought.

At length, however, she had it figured out, and began inking a separate seal for each piece, putting them in a carefully spaced relation to each other just as they belonged.

Storage seals were hardly secret, though their use wasn't commonly taught until most people made chunin and asked for it. Since they were incredibly useful, they had spent some time tracking down a manual and learning it.

With a tiny application of blood and flowing chakra, Hinata completed each seal in turn. They would require more chakra once she began sealing the pieces in, but for now, she liked having them out as a constant source of despair for Haku, who quickly gave up trying to talk to her and was now weeping silently.

Hinata glanced at him, then reached over and loosened the gag enough that he could speak.

"Hey," she said. "This sword have a name?"

Haku was silent, his eyes closed.

"Yes, yes, Zabuza lost, your hope of rescue crushed, life has no meaning. I asked you a question. Don't make me ask it pointedly."

Haku opened his eyes just enough to see through the blur of tears.

"You're not a very nice person," he said softly. Coming from another ninja, it would have been laughable, but Hinata had a pretty good idea of Haku's personality by now, and it seemed remarkably like her old one. A year ago, if she had accused someone of not being very nice, it would have been her most damning condemnation.

"We're all ugly on the inside," she replied seriously.

Haku's eyes opened wider. "What?" he asked, almost shocked. "Why do you say that?"

Hinata just tapped the side of her forehead, indicating her still covered eyes and reminding him that she was a Hyuga.

"The sword?" she pressed.

Haku closed his eyes again, as if pained. "Kubikiri Hocho. It's called Kubikiri Hocho," he said at last. "It's five generations old, created by one of the very first ninja to ever bear the title Swordsman of the Hidden Mist."

"Nice," Hinata said approvingly. She turned and started writing that on the scroll.

"Is… is that really Kubikiri Hocho?" Haku asked, unable to help himself. "That sword was forged to channel the chakra of the user. It's supposed to be unbreakable."

Hinata finished her task with methodical precision. "Everything has a weakness. I'm a Hyuga, and things that channel chakra are vulnerable to our fighting style. We don't attack it, we attack the chakra." She shrugged slightly. "In this case, the sword was only as strong as the user's chakra, his spirit, if you will." She smiled softly and turned the blank plate of her hitai-ate in Zabuza's direction.

"He is very strong, and very stubborn. But in the end, he is just another man," she finished with a quiet smile.

"Aren't we all just people?" Haku asked plaintively.

"Not all of us," Hinata replied, her smile even bigger. "Not Naruto. He's not 'just' anything."

"He is someone precious to you," Haku stated.

Hinata nodded ever so slightly.

Haku squeezed his eyes shut, causing new tears to run down his cheeks. "Zabuza was my master. He made me what I am. He was the most precious person in the world to me. And in the end, I failed him, and was captured by you. You've taken everything from me."

"He yet lives," Hinata noted.

"But to what end?" Haku asked, anguish in his voice. "What are you going to do with him? Watch him die of infection? Dissect him for his secrets?"

"Sell him to Mist for money and favors," Hinata replied in a deadpan. "We'd sell you, but Sensei says you're not in the bingo book. Maybe you'll get dissected."

"My ice powers are a bloodlimit," Haku said bitterly. "You won't be able to just copy them."

"Huh. I didn't think Mist was big on bloodlimits."

"They're not," Haku replied, and that simple statement conveyed years of anguish and resentment, hardship, loneliness, and trial.

"Ah. That would explain the Zabuza fixation." Hinata seemed to put the matter out of her mind and returned to the storage scroll.

"What would you know about it?" Haku muttered venomously. "You're from bloodlimit proud Konoha. I hear the Hyuga get treated like royalty there."

Hinata didn't act offended, or ashamed. She just smiled softly. "You have no idea what the world I come from was like. Yes, perhaps I was treated like a princess once. I was soft, kind, generous. They rejected me because I was unfit for my position, and rightfully so. So I understand something of what you feel for Zabuza. When someone pulls you out of the mud and shows you what you can be…" She shook her head ruefully. "You'll do anything for them. Anything at all. Fight. Lie. Kill."

"Torture," Haku whispered, looking at Hinata in a new light.

"With a smile on your face," Hinata agreed.

"Because a tool cannot afford weakness."

"Or it's a useless tool." Hinata cocked her head sideways, looking back at Haku. "I'm so glad you understand. It's not personal. It's just business. Naruto only causes as much pain as he needs to. Sadism is so inefficient, don't you think?"

Haku despaired. His captors would do anything to him and Zabuza they felt they needed to, and not feel bad about it in the least. They had no mercy, no compassion. Especially not this girl, his twisted counterpart.

"You are a better tool than I," he admitted.

"Thank you," Hinata replied. She resumed her work, finally sealing each piece of the sword into the scroll. When she was done she wrapped it up and secured it with twine so it wouldn't unroll, then stuffed it in her pouch.

Haku called out to her then.

"Please," he said. "What would make you end Zabuza-sama's suffering? Mist will pay just as handsomely for his body as for his capture. Please, don't turn him over to their tortures. They are sadists, unlike you."

Hinata looked at him steadily for several moments. "Haku," she said, using his name for the first time, "We already have you. And we have him. You have nothing we need."

"Please!" he blurted again, as she seemed about to walk out the door. "There must be something! For my master's sake! Think about your Naruto! What would you do for him! Give me the dignity of doing no less for mine!"

Hinata stared at him for the longest time, completely silent and unmoving. Finally, she spoke.

"I'll ask Naruto. But I promise nothing."

She left Haku in the dim shadows of the shed, Zabuza's labored breathing his only company.

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In the end, it really was that easy. Naruto allowed Haku to tell them everything he knew, from hideout locations in Water country, to Gatou and his organization, to their stashes of money and equipment scattered across Wave and two other countries. Kakashi had his own knowledge, and asked most of the questions about Mist and its workings, while Naruto kept his questions on the missing nin's more recent activities. They got details on the other members of Zabuza's organization, their fighting styles, and their backgrounds.

And in return, Naruto carefully picked Zabuza up and carried him outside, out of sight.

"He'll make it painless, and seal the body in a scroll," Hinata said, the closest thing to comfort she could offer Haku. "You don't want to see that."

"How do I know you'll keep your end of the bargain?" Haku asked. His eyes were dry, his voice hoarse but drained of emotion.

"As if we had the time or resources to keep you two in separate locations," Hinata said dismissively. "We hold the position of strength. What need do we have of lies?"

Haku nodded, exhausted from the ordeal.

She was right. What need of lies would they have?

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Authors Lie: Thanks for the reviews! Inari isn't crying anymore, though admittedly we can't get him to put the hammer down anymore. Not much else to say other than I'm gonna keep on keeping on.


	10. Something in the Water

"You're kidding me," the sharp toothed ex Mist nin said incredulously. "He's actually going to get Raiga to join us for this mission?"

Hoozuki Mangetsu was slightly taller than average, a bit more muscular than the average ninja though nothing at all out of place in the often strength focused Mist, and had hair the color of sea foam on a cloudy day. They were all on a small fisherman's vessel, one they had long ago appropriated and used for sailing around the coast and smaller islands of Wave. Let other ninjas treehop, Mist ninjas preferred ocean travel.

"Copy Nin Kakashi and a trio of ex ANBU? They took Haku down in less than a minute. Bad fucking news, Ge," Meizu replied to him.

That left the others pretty sober. Haku was as good or better than any of them present, despite most of them having more experience. Haku was fast and slippery and extremely difficult to pin down.

"Huh," Mangetsu muttered. "Well, this should be pretty fun. A big old ninja versus ninja battle? Sounds like a great time to be from the Bloody Mist."

There were grins and nods at that.

With the exception of Haku, Zabuza didn't take on people who didn't like to kill.

And everyone knew why Zabuza had taken in Haku. The Leaf ninja should have picked an entirely different target to take prisoner.

Of course, only one of them was actually tactless enough to say it.

"Man, those Leaf ninja should have known better than to kidnap Zabuza's catamite," Jian Guo mused. Jian was another muscular Mist ninja, much like Hoozuki in build, but with darker skin and features that suggested some Lightning country blood somewhere in his past. It wasn't that he was particularly foul mouthed, or rude, but even among Mist ninja he had a tendancy to call it like he saw it and leave the hints and wordplay to the others.

"We finally get to see Raiga's little fucktoy," Yuuna 'The Crab' commented, her voice echoing somewhat in her helmet in a near monotone. "I heard he was a little boy." She was one of two women in the group and cut an imposing figure in full articulated plate armor that was wider across the shoulders than even a big muscular man like Zabuza, though she was not particularly tall. Nicknamed for her immense hand strength, she was the only one with a doton affinity among the group, and preferred to harass from a distance with ninjutsu.

"I heard he was a midget, actually," Surume, the other girl commented. "The result of some sort of bloodlimit experimentation gone bad. I doubt Raiga has ever touched him, and I wouldn't imply that he has to his face, if you know what I'm saying. Raiga is about as balanced as half a shuriken." Surume was of average size and not as muscular as the boys, but she could wave her naginata around like a magic wand, and she was the oldest present, with deeply tanned skin weathered by sand, salt, and sun, and a number of small scars peppering her exposed flesh from an encounter with a particularly explosive jutsu in her genin exam.

"Yeah, Raiga didn't go missing nin so much as he wandered off and they took him off the books. Whatever that genjutsu was and whoever used it, I hope that never happens to me. Raiga used to be a hell of a Swordsman." That was Kani, tall, pale, and handsome, and also the default leader whenever Zabuza wasn't around. He wasn't the deadliest fighter of the group, but he usually got the most done.

"So when are you gonna get a catamite, Ge?" Ryota asked. He was the youngest, being barely sixteen and still somewhat gawky, though he'd filled out a lot in the past year and was probably going to be bigger than Zabuza.

"I'm not getting a catamite, punk," Hoozuki snarled and halfheartedly smacked at his younger friend. "I'd want some bitch, not a pretty little faggot.

"Huh?" Surume asked.

"It's required to be a Swordsman, Suru!" Ryota exclaimed, happy to have found someone else to tell his theory to. "I mean, look at all the others. Zabuza-sama has Haku, no question there, and Raiga has that midget kid. Kisame has that Uchiha that killed his family, and Kushimaru had Menchou, though I guess it's starting to fall apart there because you know Kushimaru was the uke in that relationship."

"Hey, Kushimaru is not gay," Kani said firmly. He'd studied under the now deceased swordsman some years previously.

Everyone looked at him.

"He is a little bitch, though," Kani admitted.

"Anyway, all I'm saying is that if Ge wants to take up one of the swords he's gonna have to man up and fuck some boys."

"What about me?" Surume asked. "Does that mean if I get a sword I'm gonna need a little girlfriend?"

The boys thought about that a moment and generally agreed that, yes, that was fair. Kani was especially approving since he and Surume were occasionally lovers.

"Hmm," Surume mused, then smiled wickedly and looked at Yuuna. "Well, I guess I'd take Yuuna." She paused. "And a can opener."

Everyone laughed imaging the huge armored figure of Yuuna as Surume's 'little girlfriend', except Yuuna, who stood there in dignified silence, and Surume, who grinned. Unknown to the others, Yuuna was actually quailing inside the huge shell of her armor, because she actually was a pretty small girl inside the layers of padding, mesh, and steel that made her suit, and she knew Surume knew that. Yuuna liked to have some protection between her and the outside world, and about eight inches of armor sometimes didn't feel like enough.

With friends like these…

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Less than half a kilometer away, but more than a hundred feet down, eyes tracked the movement of the ship carrying the missing nin. Considering how highly prized it was as a food fish, and how often they ended up at sushi bars and dinner tables, it was easy to forget that the tuna was a vicious, top level predator of the sea, capable of speeds as fast as any shark. So when, five hundred years ago, the fisherman Hoderi Urashima agreed to free a tuna princess in exchange for a summoning contract, he found the bargain invaluable, for tuna know how to herd other fish.

And when his Kiri hunter nin descendant, Ryu Urashima, needed to both follow a large group of recently spotted missing nin, kill his current target, and tell his superiors about the sighting, he found the contract invaluable as well.

It completely made up for the tendancy of the Urashima men to marry women who perform in bed like a dead fish.

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Hinata dodged left, dodged right, jumped to avoid a spike of earth forming below her, and had time only for one single palm slap as a desperate move to avoid Kakashi's incoming attack.

Kakashi had his sharingan uncovered, which he'd been using off and on through various fights, and was able to easily avoid the blow. He even allowed himself the flourish of a spin kick, slamming his sandaled foot into Hinata's shoulders and sending her hurtling to the ground.

Hinata flared her chakra in the initial move of the kaiten, but without the spin to focus it, she still hit with bone jarring force. She was on her feet again in moments, but they both knew that, in a real fight, she'd have died then.

"You've been sparring with Naruto too much," Kakashi noted calmly. "It's reinforced the bad habits your family training has given you."

Hinata took deep breaths, but didn't protest, just thinking about his words for a moment. "I have not practiced jumping combat enough," she guessed.

"Symptom only," Kakashi disagreed. "Naruto likes big, rushing attacks, like a wave crashing onto a shore, and he uses a lot of clones, which dispel easily against a good defense. That's made your Hyuga tendancy to stand your ground become much more pronounced. Learning and practicing tree climbing the way you did, early and unsupervised, only made it worse. You've learned to anchor yourself to the ground with chakra to meet an attack. Practicing your kicks is a good idea, it shows that you're at least aware that you need to be more mobile, but you need more." He paused thoughtfully. "Naruto!"

"Clone work or do you want the real thing?" a kage bunshin asked, dropping down out of a tree.

"Clones are fine," Kakashi replied. "I want you to make five clones and throw sticks and rocks at Hinata while she jumps up and down. Add one clone every ten minutes until you get ten solid hits, but don't go any longer than three hours. We're still waiting to be attacked, after all."

"How high should I jump?" Hinata asked.

Kakashi shrugged. "Vary it. And try to perform any jutsu you know while you do it. Don't throw anything physical, but if you know any ranged jutsu, feel free to take out any clones you can."

"Yes, Sensei," Hinata agreed.

Kakashi disappeared, then reappeared moments later in another clearing, one scattered with Naruto clones. As he arrived, one wavered into insubstantiality and disappeared, leaving a puff of smoke behind.

"How's the brainsplodey?" Kakashi asked cheerfully.

"Well, my brain is about to explode," four nearby Narutos confessed, then looked at each other in confusion. As one, they all bopped themselves on the head. All four popped.

"That's… odd," every other Naruto, including the ones throwing rocks at Hinata, said at the same time. "By the numbers boys, who thinks they're the most real," one said, and dispelled himself.

The next one, though, found solid flesh, then looked around, startled. "Ow my brain," he complained, then looked at Kakashi. "Do I get to retire if I manage to cause enough brain damage?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No, sorry, we have to kill you and seal the Kyubi in someone else. Otherwise it could possess your body."

"Man, and I don't even get to use the dental," Naruto pouted.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Because your healing keeps your teeth healthy?"

Naruto shrugged. "I guess, but mainly I've been seriously creeped out by dental tools since my days in T and I. I just brush really thoroughly."

"Ah, so."

Naruto's expression turned serious. "Is there ANY hint you can give me? Because I'm getting nothing. At first I thought that if I could just use all of my clone's chakra in some sort of jutsu, maybe I could keep the leftovers from returning. Then I thought that, maybe I have to actually transform the clone body into an explosion. I think I made a breakthrough on my other project, but not in the clone explosion technique. Now I've been trying to play with the dispel, but I've got nothing."

Kakashi shook his head. "No, I'd give you a hint if I could, but I only saw Bunshin Bakuha performed once, and not with the sharingan."

"Well can you at least tell me who did it? Maybe I can try to think like them. I've been at this for four days with no luck, I need SOMETHING." Kakashi had previously refused to tell Naruto where he'd seen the technique.

Kakashi mused that over, then decided it couldn't hurt to tell him. Much, anyway.

"It was an Uchiha," he allowed. "Itachi."

Naruto thought about that in silence for several moments. "Hmmm, how to get in Itachi's head… Right, I'm off to torture Sasuke into insanity. Be right back."

Kakashi slapped him in the head. "Don't be a smartass. Don't tell Sasuke where the technique came from or he'll obesses about trying to recreate it himself, and he's busy enough right now."

"Yes, Sensei," Naruto replied, rubbing his head. Kakashi hadn't pulled that one very much. He paused again. "Ooh, let me show you the breakthrough I had on my new taijutsu style!"

He squinted his eyes slightly in concentration, then extended his hand. His arm grew an extra two feet. "It still takes me too long to do it for it to be any use in combat, but I'd been thinking about it ever since I saw Chouji do it. Some sort of Akimichi clan technique, but I'm not interested in carrying it as far as they do. I just want to be able to instantly transform into a new shape or position in combat. I think I could even get around the sharingan's prediction if I'm not using muscle to move, so there would be no tells." He extended his arm a little bit more and patted the shoulder of a clone.

His hand sunk into the clone without dispelling it.

"Ahg!" the clone cried out, then dispelled.

Taking Naruto's hand off at the wrist.

"AHGHGHAHAGH! What the FUUUaaaarrrgh!" Naruto cried, trying to hold his wrist, but his arm was literally too long and misshapen for it to curl back. Blood spewed profusely from the severed stump, an there was a strange cloud of chakra that seemed to cling to it.

Kakashi stared at the scene, visible eye opened wide. "Well now, that's something I've never seen before," he admitted.

"Aaa ow ow ow …concentrate, concentrate-" Naruto transformed back into his regular body, which included both hands. "Whooo, that was unpleasant," he said, grabbing at his head with both hands for a moment before straightening and looking rueful.

"I'll bet. Your training is over for the day," Kakashi announced. "If you can't keep up with which one of you is real and you've actually managed to dispel part of your own body, you're not fit for anything. Go back to the house, and start dispeling your clones slowly. I'll get Hinata and meet Sasuke on the bridge."

"Yes, Sensei," Naruto said without argument, wincing.

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Sasuke, meanwhile, spent his time on the bridge with Tazuna and the various men he'd managed to gather. Mostly he watched the men, since infiltrating as a noncombatant would be Team Lie's chosen method of assassination, but he was aware that attacks could come from any direction.

Kakashi seemed pretty sure that they could handle anything, though, and rotated them on guard duty so he could train the other two. Which was odd, since he'd completely refused their request to go take care of Gatou and his hired thugs.

What kind of ninja just sat and waited for an attack?

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An ox masked ANBU wiped his katana clean with the shirt of a dead thug and slipped it back into its sheath, then looked up sharply as another Konoha ANBU, a woman with a few strands of purple hair visible on the very small section of exposed neck, came through the door. He relaxed when she gave a small sign of her identity.

"No one else in the building," she reported.

Only then did he allow himself to cough, and they both turned as the leader of their four man cell came in from another door.

"Gatou is dead, his safe opened, and the papers acquired," the leader confirmed. "Next target."

The first errant thugs brave enough to venture into the eerily silent headquarters of the former business empire found Gatou's head sitting on his desk in front of his body, and nearly thirty thousand ryo just sitting in the opened safe in the corner. Of course, being somewhat foolish, they let news of the money slip, and soon many others took their slice of the pie by force.

Mercenaries who fail to get paid tend to take their financial woes out on the civilians around them, but when they're relatively flush, they tend to spend it all on booze and whores. By leaving the cash, the ANBU actually gave the economy a small boost.

The really valuable parts of the company, small local businesses and shipping interests scattered up and down the coast, found new owners and managers, people who owed Konoha new favors.

ANBU weren't generally used for client missions, being meant to insure the security of Konoha itself. However, the economic stability and intelligence gathering opportunities in Wave could be said to be a part of Konoha's security, if one were inclined to argue.

Meanwhile, Team Lie was learning the importance of staying on mission.

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"Hey, Naruto," Sasuke said.

"Yeah?" Naruto asked, turning to look at Sasuke.

Instantly, the world seemed to grey out around him, and Sasuke rippled and expanded, growing eyes and mouths all over his body, his stomach collapsing and being sucked up into his chest, and even his chest shrinking as his insides crawled out through his face and began waving fanged cillia and ichor covered tentacles. "Tellikiliki –li!" he piped through a series of holes in his flesh.

"GAH!" Naruto said, and fell over backwards. He lay there for a moment, formed a seal, and said, "Kai."

The genjutsu broken, Naruto sat back up and gave Sasuke a longsuffering look. "Was there anything else?" he asked in a dry tone.

"Nah, that was it, thanks." Sasuke turned away.

"I'll quit falling for that one day," Naruto muttered.

While Hinata worked on her speed and agility and Naruto worked on his jutsu, Sasuke worked on sharingan genjutsu. Unfortunately, that meant that Naruto got more than his fair share of horrible visions, misdirections, and had even gotten lost once in the kitchen for nearly five minutes before he realized that his thinking was muddled.

They all already knew genjutsu, of course. Sasuke had learned half a dozen from the scrolls Hinata had read from afar. Naruto knew two himself, learned from Ibiki during his time spent as the mascot of T&I. Naruto had, of course, attempted to teach them to Hinata, but with mixed results.

The first, a basic genjutsu called Hell Viewing Technique, she was completely unable to use. It produced a vision of the user's choice as well as a suggestion in the victim's mind that the vision was truly horrific, so theoretically someone not afraid of, say, dogs, could be utterly freaked out by a vision of dogs provided by the Hell Viewing Technique. Hinata's attempts to use it on Naruto had produced a vague sense of unease and a weirdly distorted vision that was like a garish explosion of colors and movement. Distracting, yes, but not so much that it impaired him. Sadly, Naruto had no idea of how to help her improve since he was lackluster at the technique himself. Though the fear he produced was substantial, his vision was somehow lacking, making the victim realize it was a genjutsu immediately. Sasuke was, of course, quite adept once he learned it, but it was a weak technique at best.

The second was an unnamed torture technique. It was quite powerful in its way, but had sharp limits. It was a contact genjutsu, and relied on the user literally overpowering the chakra network of the victim to cause physical sensations of the user's choice. Ibiki used it on prisoners who's chakra network had been weakened by drugs and seals, or even shut off entirely by one of the Hyuga ANBU. Naruto just used it as normal, and had never had anyone able to resist. Hinata lacked the power to overwhelm Naruto when she practiced it on him, but she could shut off his chakra network herself, at least for short periods. Their first kiss, daringly initiated by Hinata, had been a sensory illusion she caused in him. Sasuke, without Naruto's immensely powerful chakra or Hinata's ability to shut off the chakra coils in the victim, hadn't been able to do it without Hinata's help, and had put nothing beyond the most cursory effort into learning it.

The answer of why Hinata had been able to use one and not the other had come from a brief conversation Sasuke had with Sakura. Sakura was in traning to be a genjutsu specialist, so naturally had knowledge the others had lacked. A little coaxing by Sasuke, at Naruto's insistence of course, had gotten all kinds of secrets from her.

Apparently, for vision genjutsu to work, you had to understand how your victim saw the world. A ninja with poor vision actually had an excellent chance of realizing that they were under a genjutsu because the vision they were confronted with was usually too sharp to be natural. The more intelligent animals, such as summons and ninja dogs, resisted most sensory illusions because their senses were wildly different from human's. Hyuga might briefly see an illusion, but they also saw the chakra behind it and the real world at more or less the same time, so had no trouble manipulating their chakra to neutralize any effect.

Also, genjutsu were supposed to be subtle, easily overlooked things. Naruto overpowered his genjutsu like he did everything else. It worked for one designed to overpower, but not so much on the subtle ones. Hinata just didn't understand how normal people saw the world, so her efforts to mislead produced only odd visual effects. Naruto at first assumed that it was how she saw the world, but Sakura had shot that theory down. Hinata's genjutsu targeted coils in the eyes that normal people didn't have, so what he saw from her was really just a mishmash of signals.

So how, then, was Sasuke able to cast realistic genjutsu? Naruto was damned sure that Sasuke saw the world different from anyone else. Hell, he bragged about it.

The answer, it turned out, lay in the sharingan's ability to copy and mimic techniques, for the normal genjutsu, and in the sharigan's ability to bypass creative visions and go straight to hypnotic suggestion.

When Kakashi started teaching him the basics of how to ensnare the mind with nothing but a glance, Sasuke proved an apt student.

Of course.

Still, even though he could make some powerful suggestions in Hinata's mind, Hinata literally saw the chakra involved in the process, and filtered it out. There was some speculation that it might work on a Hyuga who didn't have an activated byakugan, but they didn't have one of those so it was a moot point. Hinata's was still always on, and the hitai-ate that covered her eyes much of the time blocked chakra anyway.

Kakashi was too skilled to ever let his guard down.

Naruto fell for it every time. Especially since the horrors that Sasuke 'suggested' were ones Naruto had personally been eaten by. Sasuke smirked a lot. Naruto grumbled and called it the mindfuck.

Hinata wondered if she would ever be able to figure out how to reproduce the things she saw with her abyssal eyes in a normal person's vision, and what would happen to that person if she succeeded.

She was under a standing order/request from both Kakashi and her teammates to never find out using an ally.

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"A report from Ryu, sir," the Mist hunter nin said, handing a sealed scroll to the Captain of the Mist ANBU before disappearing. It fairly reeked of fish.

Ao rolled his one visible eye and took the scroll, popping the chakra seal with a technique that was only supposed to belong to current and former ANBU, which really meant that probably no more than five or six people from all the other hidden villages knew it. It wasn't the most secure of communication channels but Mist had never produced any really exceptional seal masters, and they knew it.

Ao had been in the Mist ANBU since he was sixteen. Colder of emotion and thought than most of the rather hotheaded island ninja, he'd been fasttracked to a position of responsibility, running herd on the tempers and insanities of his comrades. Captain by the age of twenty six, he'd spent the past six years dealing with upheavals and bloodlimit clan survivors and the efforts of other ninja to pry loose the deathgrip control Mist had over the seas. He'd participated in a victorious war against Cloud and countless skirmishes against Leaf, Stone, Sand, and a host of minor villages. Most of his real challenges, however, had come from the antics of his own countrymen.

Always he'd surivived by being the best at planning and tactics. When he was overpowered in a fight, a rare but not unheard of occurance, he had escape routes and backup. He liked calling in favors and he loved being owed favors. His dislikes ran along the lines of a few specific people, mostly fellow Mist ninja, though he had a few spots of honor devoted to ninja from other countries, and he hated wasabi, which rendered a large number of common snack foods inedible.

Overall, he was a hard man with a hard job who remained successful enough to not lose his dry sense of humor, which was especially tickled every time he killed a Cloud ninja. Most days he never had to leave the village at all, and he liked it that way.

However, one thing was enough to make him stand up and bend over the outstretched scroll on the table, his hands clenching in sudden excitement.

Momichi Zabuza had been found. Kirigakure's most dangerous traitor.

Plenty of mist ninja had gone missing nin, noticably above the average for a hidden village, but most of them did it due to old family duties or squabbles with other mist nin. Even the various Swordsmen of the ninja village usually did little more than get themselves banned for killing a few people they shouldn't have, even the notorious Daimyo-killer Kisame. It wasn't like anyone had actually liked the Daimyo anyway, but there were formalities to observe.

Only one had ever led an organized coup against the rulers of Mist. Only one had divided the ranks, nearly succeeded, and most importantly, escaped to try it again.

Momichi Zabuza. Subject of over a dozen current longrunning projects to find and kill, and they'd stumbled across ninja headed to a meeting with him by accident.

Oh, this was a job for Kiri ANBU.

Smirking with a satisfied air, Ao started assembling his squads.

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"So, you agree that it would be the honorable thing to do to repay a favor, and you agree that a fight would leave both of us unable to deal with the Leaf ninja, which would be the exact opposite of a favor, right?" Zabuza explained patiently to the too small boy sitting on a log by the campfire.

Why they even had to have a fire was a mystery to Zabuza, but Raiga insisted for Ranmaru's sake.

Ranmaru nodded seriously.

"Then can you please explain it to Raiga so I don't have to beat him into repaying the favor?" Zabuza asked, doing his best to contain his frustration. Raiga was a challenge to deal with on the best of days, and he didn't mean in combat.

Ranmaru cocked his head like a puzzled chicken.

Zabuza sighed and unconciously reached for the comfort of a sword that wasn't there. He'd commissioned an emergency replacement but neither blood nor money could instantly recreate his beloved kubikiri hocho. That bitch. When he got ahold of her he was going to pull her apart like a pig.

"I understand what you're saying," Ranmaru replied in his high, childlike voice. He really was tiny, like a young elfin midget. "But why should I? I don't owe you a favor."

Zabuza resisted the urge to crush the little boy's head in relief. The relief was because they'd both ended up on the same page, negotiating wise. The anger was because he hated negotiation and preferred to just kill his way to a solution. Still, headcase or not, Raiga was a dangerous opponent, and would definitely react badly if his little friend was hurt. He glanced sideways at the tall missing nin, who was completely absorbed in cooking some gruel for his and Ranmaru's supper.

"So I'll owe you a favor?" he hazarded.

"On your honor?" Ranmaru asked.

Zabuza shrugged his heavily muscled shoulders, which, compared to Ranmaru, looked like boulders moving around under skin. "I won't get very far not keeping my promises, so yeah. On my honor."

"Okay, then I will make sure he understands. But I want my favor returned immediately." He was such a ridiculously tiny little kid, yet he sounded serious.

Zabuza didn't quite roll his eyes. "Fine. What is it?"

"I want you to make sure Raiga-san survives your favor unhurt."

Zabuza frowned. "You mean like, unhurt unhurt, or like, not crippled unhurt? Because we're gonna be fighting some Leaf ninja and they're nasty bastards."

Ranmaru just held stared at him until Zabuza relented and looked him in the eye. "You know what I mean," he said quietly. "Raiga won't lose in a fair fight, but you'd better not send him off to die."

Zabuza scratched his chin. Damn. He had, actually entertained some thoughts of getting the crazy Mist missing nin killed. But oh well, maybe next time. "Sure, kid, fine. No sending him off against an army by himself. I won't ask him to do anything I wouldn't ask my Haku to do."

Ranmaru's eyes brightened. "Okay, that will work." He'd heard stories about Zabuza's friend, Haku. Of course, those stories had come from Raiga, who'd heard them from others, and who wasn't the most reliable source of information anyway.

Zabuza forced a smile onto his face, though it wasn't much of one and most of it was hidden by his wraps, but it got the point across as he gingerly shook Ranmaru's tiny hand to seal the deal. He briefly lost himself in thought as Ranmaru and Raiga talked quietly among themselves.

Raiga was a powerful ally, and Zabuza would prefer to use him as part of a flanking maneuver, assigning some of his minions to him and splitting his groups. However, Raiga was a few kunai short of a full pouch, and who knew what he'd get up to by himself. No, best to leave his other ninja under the command of Kani and work with Raiga himself. Kani was a good, hard ninja, not as talented as Haku, but no slouch. With luck and numbers, they could handle the subordinates while Zabuza and Raiga killed Sharigan Kakashi.

"Will I get to meet Haku?" Ranmaru asked.

The question shook Zabuza out of his thoughts. He frowned and shook his head. "Doubt it. I'm pretty sure he's dead." Zabuza tried for a neutral, matter of fact tone, but some anger still crept into his voice.

Ranmaru and Raiga exchanged a look.

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"Finally figured it out?" Sasuke asked as Naruto carefully inked the strip of paper. He was sitting at the table, Inari watching him quietly.

"The last couple caused pretty severe destruction for about ten feet in all directions, but they didn't blow up like they usually do," Naruto admitted, turning red slitted eyes to Sasuke after he completed the final runes. "I have to use my other chakra, so I think what I'm doing is just releasing a tags worth of unfiltered destruction." He quirked his lips. "Silent, though."

Sasuke looked impressed. Even low powered raiton tags had a crackle to them.

"Hey, Sasuke, can you do me a favor?" Naruto asked as he started inking a new tag.

Sasuke shrugged. "Why not."

"Great."

Sasuke stared at him for a while, until it became clear that Naruto wasn't going to speak again.

"Well, what is it you want?" Sasuke asked, irritated.

Naruto shrugged. "I'm not picky."

Sasuke sneered.

"Great news, kids," Kakashi announced from the doorway as he entered the room.

They all looked up at him.

"Gatou is dead and his business empire scattered!" Kakashi continued in a cheerful tone of voice.

Inari jumped to his feet. "But I was gonna kill him when I got older," he protested. "I called dibs and everything!"

"Yep, that you did. By the official rules of allied ninja kill stealing, that means I owe you a drink. Here you go, kid." He tossed a juicebox at Inari, who hadn't even seen him pull it out of a pocket.

The box bapped into Inari's face and fell onto the table, narrowly missing a porcelin tray of mixed blood and ink.

Inari stared at it in confusion. "Bananna cherry kiwi grape?" he said, too shocked by the news to really focus. "But…"

"Naruto, show him how to use the straw. And explain the rules of kill stealing to him." Kakashi disappeared.

Sasuke and Naruto exchanged a look. Kakashi hadn't been missing but around twenty minutes, so there was something going on they weren't aware of. Still, an order is an order.

Naruto resolutely began telling Inari about a ficticious set of rules for when someone you like kills the person you hate most before you get a chance to, stabbing the pointed straw through the weak spot of the juice box as he talked.

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"Goddamn it, kai!" Naruto cursed as he realized that, yet again, he'd met Sasuke's eyes and been ensnared in a genjutsu. It was the work of a moment to break it-

And Sasuke's flying, outstretched foot caught him in the chest and sent him flying, cracking three ribs and knocking the wind out of him.

Naruto ignored the sharp pain, forming seals while he slid on his back, then melted into the ground as he slid.

Sasuke smirked, flipping four shuriken, each trailing wires, into curving paths across the ground where Naruto had disappeared. A seal and a burst of electrical chakra quickly followed, disrupting Naruto's jutsu.

It took a moment after the electricity had stopped for Naruto to climb back to the surface, his hair standing on end from residual charge but otherwise unhurt. The attack had, however, prevented him from making clones beneath the ground, and Sasuke knew it.

Naruto flung a kunai with a tag on it at Sasuke and triggered it in mid air, releasing the stored demonic chakra inside. Instead of exploding the way most exploding notes did, it simply formed a rapidly expanding cloud of chakra just potent enough to tint the air red, though of course it glowed quite obviously in Sasuke's vision. The grass immediately turned brown and died, then began flaking away, even the ground itself crumbling and turning ashy beneath.

Previous experiments had shown that the Kyubi's chakra was harmless to Naruto, and by extension Hinata and Sasuke, but anything else in contact would die or erode as if it was a highly acidic poison. Previous experiments had left little circles in the forest where nothing would ever grow again. It would also effectively block most of Sasuke's vision.

Naruto used the cover to quickly shapeshift into a new form, one with a left arm two feet longer than the right. He turned sideways to cover it, tracking Sasuke as he circled the cloud.

Then, smirking and staring boldly at his friend, he unleashed his newest technique.

"Hey, Sasuke, I've been meaning to tell you… Hinata watches you pee."

"Yeah, whatever," Sasuke dismissed. Then, despite his efforts to ignore it, the words penetrated his focus. "Wait, what?" His eyes flicked in the direction Hinata had taken along with some of Naruto's clones, then back to Naruto, who was staring at him with an evil little grin. "Lies," Sasuke spat, flinging more shuriken.

"But you can't be sure, can you?" Naruto pressed, easily dodging the attack. "Maybe she's trying to catch you masturbating. Maybe she's just a voyeur." Naruto flung a kunai at Sasuke.

Sasuke started to just deflect it, but something in Naruto's movements made him dodge instead. A good thing, too, since Naruto had thrown a pair of shuriken in the shadow of the larger kunai, and since they had been thrown faster they hit and deflected off the hilt of the dagger to spread out at the last moment. Sasuke, however, was no where near it, and was instead charging at him, sharingan spinning.

"I am watching you peeee!" Naruto cried gleefuly using Hinata's voice.

Sasuke gritted his teeth, but almost of their own accord his eyes slid to one side in embarassment and wouldn't meet Naruto's own. Of course, he was still capable of beating Naruto down the old fashioned way.

Naruto's chakra suddenly flared red and reached out, more or less under it's own accord, and swatted Sasuke across the clearing faster than he could react. He slammed into a tree with enough force to knock off bark, bouncing off and flopping to the ground bonelessly.

"Oh shit, Sasuke! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" Naruto cried in sudden alarm, the tone of his voice totally at odds with the suddenly malevolent aura around him. He focused to resume his normal body and hurried to Sasuke's side, putting up his weapons as he did so.

"Unngh, what the hell was that," Sasuke groaned, attempting to sit up.

"Sakura summoned some of my chakra to smash something," Naruto answered. "I can usually suppress the reaction but Neji did it earlier today and it's hard to keep it calm when we're fighting." He wiped his hand through a spot of blood on Sasuke's arm, then grabbed his wrist and concentrated, sending chakra into the Uchiha.

The demonic chakra couldn't be said to be actually healthy, but it did do a great job of patching the body up, and Sasuke was able to stand up without pain moments later. His white tomoe sharingan spun with the rush he always got from the extremely potent chakra. Slowly, he felt his eyes getting wetter, as if with unshed tears, and quickly dashed blood out of his eyes.

"They been doing that a lot?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto shrugged. "Off and on. Sakura more often than Neji. I think she wants the strength to impress Shino and Kiba."

Sasuke shrugged. "Well, as long as it doesn't cause you to randomly kill me I don't really care." He stared at Naruto.

Naruto raised one eyebrow, looking back, then flinched and raised both hands into a guard position as he realized that he was staring into the sharingan.

Sasuke blinked.

Naruto blinked and lowered his arms. Looked at Sasuke.

Sasuke's sharingan was spinning wildly, almost forming a solid white circle instead of discrete tomoe. Nothing crawled out of his skin, the world didn't disappear, copies of himself didn't swarm him from the sides, nothing. A few drops of blood leaked from the corners. That was it.

Sasuke frowned. "I can't seem to use genjutsu."

"Really?"

"I feel the chakra, but it's just not flowing right," Sasuke muttered, concentrating. "I thought the chakra was supposed to give me an advantage, not mess things up."

Naruto winced. "You still haven't figured out what the white tomoe do, huh?"

"Well apparently they prevent me from using genjutsu," Sasuke snapped back.

"No need to cry about it, sheesh," Naruto replied as Sasuke wiped his eyes again. "Are you sure it's all genjutsu?"

Sasuke frowned, concentrated, then formed seals the old fashioned way.

A mob of about a dozen fangirls, all former classmates and a few older girls, rushed Naruto from all sides, screaming their devotion.

"Gah! Ewww," Naruto complained, jumping in surprise at being hit by the Hell Viewing Technique and quickly breaking it with a kai. "Looks like your jutsu are unaffected. Maybe it's because you haven't learned how to use your new sharingan yet? I mean, look at all the weird things Hinata had to put up with out of hers."

"Bleeding out of my eyes isn't enough?" Sasuke growled, flinging fresh blood off his finger. "I was basing my new fighting style off of sharingan genjutsu!"

Naruto shrugged. "So don't get over reliant. Or maybe there's a workaround. You haven't been using my chakra much anyway. I mean, Hinata basically summons it every morning."

"Hinata is insane and doesn't bleed out her eyes," Sasuke replied irritably. "I'm gonna go find Sensei. Maybe he has a suggestion."

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AL: Enh, my production rate has dropped to somewhat low levels, but I ain't dead. And while it's possible I will eventually give up completely on this little side story, I've got some hilarious stuff in mind for the chunin exams and I'm not willing to give up until I get that done. It's not like this is the fanfiction equivilent of War and Peace. AMNQ is just a comedy bit, not something you're supposed to take seriously. As for the other fics, I've got partial chapters done on a lot of stuff, I just haven't managed to complete anything yet. Oh well. Eventually, I promise.

Also it has come to my attention that people have sent me messages through fanfictionnet and I never got them. I don't know, I guess it wasn't forwarding personal messages to my email address? Anyway, now I look like an asshole for ignoring everyone so I'm gonna start sending out some replies...


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